#she’s already almost burnt the fucking house down twice

[birb-boyo]

I find it funny how this old ass lady can tell me that all I do is eat because I’m eating breakfast

Like, sorry I’m eating constantly now maam, I’ll just go back to only eating dinn-

OH WAIT-

YOU GOT MAD AT ME WHEN ALL I ATE WAS DINNER TOO

Guess I’ll just starve then🤷🏽‍♂️

[fuctacles]

Witch Hunt

for @steddie-spooktober "witch" & @stevieweek "i don't know about this one..." prompt which i've altered quite a bit but used it twice so it kind of evens out, right???

E | 2568 | transfem!Steve (goes by Eve), witch!Steve, demon!Eddie, medieval fantasy, some arson and murder boyfriend vibes, magical srs, possible continuation, im sorry for all the lore | Ao3 more spooktober: "would you please stop trying to scare them?"

Eddie hated his job. Not only the human realm was much colder than Hell, but also, the Deal didn't always work. The success rate has been increasing each time, but it still pissed him off when nothing happened after he's been freezing his balls off for hours. He was starting to think all his fur was just decorative. 

When he had arrived at Heimdall's, the guy threw him a skimpy tunic that barely covered his privates. 

"Is this the only one you have? You can see my whole dick and balls in it," Eddie had complained, but beggars can't be choosers and all that. 

He wraps the fabric tighter around himself when the next gust of air moves clouds away from the moon, making the pile of debris in the clearing visible. Time passes and Eddie waits impatiently, tapping his hooves against the ground, and idly picking stray grass blades from his tail. It seems like the pile moves a couple of times, but it's just the wind disturbing it. 

A distant clock tower strikes midnight, and finally, the ash pile moves and keeps on moving, until a hand emerges. Eddie straightens up, his tail twitching in interest. 

The ashes start breathing, the charred remains get knocked down and a coughing fit raises a dark cloud into the air. She'll be spitting soot for hours, but at least she's up now, another success for the statistics. 

He decides to take pity on the poor girl and steps away from the fence he's been perched on, making room for his wings. With two good swats, the dirt is gone, leaving a slightly dirty, very naked woman in the middle of a charred circle. 

He raises his eyebrows. 

"These fucking perverts burnt you naked?"

She finally notices his presence, her red-rimmed eyes blinking rapidly to clear her vision, and stands up on shaky legs, still low on energy after her resurrection, barely maintaining her balance. Suddenly, Eddie doesn't seem to matter anymore, as her hands fly to her chest. 

"What...?" she murmurs to herself.

Eddie tilts his head, watching the human with curiosity. Usually, the arrival of a demon gets a bigger fanfare, he's almost insulted, but he waits patiently. He already did for so long, and now he has something pretty to lay his eyes on for once. Witches usually came with ugly meat sacks, even after their resurrection. 

"Where the fuck is my dick?!"

Ah, yes, that would explain it. The naked thing, too.

"Do you want it back?" Eddie asks because he's a demon with manners. 

"No!" she protests immediately, eyes snapping up to him from observing her crotch. "No," she adds softer. "I like it like that." Her hand reaches down to inspect her new parts, so Eddie takes it upon himself to swat it away with his tail.

"Hey!" 

He tsks, his long tongue slipping out to flick in a warning. 

"Let's not put any more dirt in your holes, okay?" he berates her. Regretfully, he shrugs off the tunic he's been wearing and throws it at the girl. "For your modesty, m'lady." 

She glowers at him but slips it over her head anyway. What was small for the demon, doesn't do much more for a human, especially not one with the curves that she has. She wrinkles her nose. 

"Is there even a point? You can see my whole—"

Eddie slaps her hand preemptively. 

"Hey! I wasn't even touching it!" 

"Your hand was too close."

"No, it wasn't!" 

Eddie rolls his eyes. 

"Let's clean you up and then you can touch it all you want. You have a river in this ditch?" he asks, nose twitching in the air. He turns at the same time the witch points her hand. 

"To the left of the village." 

Eddie's eyes stray to the cluster of houses she seems determined not to look at.

"Do you have anyone left there?" he asks curiously.

"Not anymore," she scoffs, taking off towards the river. 

Eddie has to follow her, he can't risk losing a witch, but an urge flares inside of him that he has to let loose. He claps his hands together and starts rubbing, sparks flying until a fire forms in his palm. He bounces it from one hand to another and nuzzles it with his finger, always happy to work with the little guys. When he feels the witch is watching him, he refocuses and whispers to it:

"Go, little one. Do your worst."

The flame flies off his palm, aided by a push from Eddie's phantom wings. 

She doesn't ask, only eyes him curiously, but he pushes gently on her back to prompt her into walking along his side. 

"It's gonna take a while," he says without any other explanation. 

The walk isn't long, and soon she's handing over the tunic and dipping into the lazily flowing water, dark like ink but glittering with the reflection of stars above. The night sky is probably the only thing Eddie misses in the Underworld. 

He sits on the plush grass, observing as the witch dunks under the surface and rubs her skin until it turns pink. It still contrasts with the water like it's made of the finest porcelain. 

"I guess you're clean enough to explore now," he says as her movements slow down like she's already contemplating it. She must be, he can taste her curiosity from his spot on the river bank.

"You're gonna sit there and watch?" she glowers at him.

"Of course," he answers matter-of-factly. "I'm a demon."

She huffs, but this time it sounds more amused. Her hand travels down her body.

"What's your name, witch?" Eddie asks, resting his chin on his hand. 

"Stev—" she hesitates. 

"Eve?" he picks up curiously. That would be hilarious. 

She kind of nods, kind of shakes her head. 

"I was Steven, then I went by Stevonne, but..."

"That's okay, take your time," Eddie reassures her. "This is your Rebirth, you can pick any name you like."

She hums, and he can see her hand making slow, circling movements under the water. 

"I like Eve," she admits.

"Yeah?" Eddie perks up with a smile. "You can call me Eddie. It's nice to make your acquaintance, Eve."

She smiles and opens her mouth to say something, but her attention is pulled somewhere above Eddie's shoulder. The water starts glowing orange. 

"Looks like the little guy is having fun," he hums, not looking around. The glow of fire looks better on Eve's skin anyway. 

The river carries distant cries for help, a reminder that it's not just a big, pretty bonfire. 

"Don't worry, he'll get them all," he says.

"I'm not worried," she assures quickly. 

Eve's fixated on the fire consuming her village, her eyes full of awe and the reflection of flames. She's glowing in the now orange water and she looks gorgeous reflecting Eddie's carnage like that. She'll look breathtaking among hellfire. 

"Maybe we could spare some," he wonders out loud with a lazy smile. She looks back at him. "So we can hunt them down later. The way they hunt my new favorite witch."

She smiles, mean and thrilled. He'll have to fight fang and claw to keep her.

"Maybe we could." 

They look at each other for a long while, until his eyes dip. 

"You done?" Eddie looks pointedly at her stilled hand. She sighs with frustration. 

"It's way different from this angle," she complains. 

Eddie laughs out loud, the sound echoed by the collapsing church that used to tower over the townsfolk. 

"Need a hand?" he offers, rolling his eyes when she eyes his claws with distrust. He flicks out his tongue instead. "Need a tongue?" 

Eve's totally on board for that, clambering out of the water, her hazelnut hair dripping over her curves. The wet shine on her skin reflects the dancing flames and Eddie would be in love if he knew how to.

"Weren't you appalled that I was watching you just seconds ago?" he laughs at her, a little bit mean, but he already knows she can take it. 

"Turns out I like that," she shrugs without shame, making Eddie's smile grow. The sight of his sharp teeth doesn't deter her either. In an instant, he has a lap full of a human, or at least as much of one there was left in Eve. He has her tits right in his face and he wouldn't be a demon if he didn't give them a taste, licking the river water off her skin. She sighs, fingers tangling in his unruly mane of hair, seeking purchase in his horns. He groans when she grabs them, and wraps his arms around her, pressing into her skin so he can flip them around, and lay her down in the bed of grass. 

Her yelp turns into a delighted laugh and Eddie trembles with the sound. They don't make witches like that anymore. Free and open to the joys of life, ready to frolic and mingle with the things Unknown. Christianity made it so hard for demons and fae to get laid. 

He presses hot kisses down her torso, spends extra time sucking around her navel, then nibbling around her mound, hiking her thighs higher and higher, nosing at the crease there, inhaling her scent, until he gets to his destination. It takes two, three expert licks for Eve to lock her legs around him and scream into the night. 

Eddie gently laps up around her hole, her juices too precious to let fall on the grass below. Her breath hitches and she trembles but doesn't move away. 

"Do you want more?" he asks, black eyes searching for an answer. 

Her eyes are still full of fire.

"Yes."

So he gives her one more, then three, until he loses count and his tongue is numb and Eve's but a puddle of human-shaped limbs underneath him. When he laps at her entrance, drunk himself on her smell and taste, she spreads her legs invitingly, eyes blown and impossibly wide, sparkling with flames. 

They stare into each other's dark eyes as he slithers his tongue inside. He rubs against her walls, searching for her face for a reaction, but she's too out of it for anything more than an involuntary twitch of muscles. However, when he moves away, she seems disappointed. He crawls up her body to properly look at her face, but before he can say anything, she lurches forward.

Kissing is not something he's used to in such circumstances, but he indulges anyway, letting her tongue inspect the sharp points of his teeth, and maneuver his hand on her breast. He squeezes, laps, and sucks, letting himself get lost in this new dance. 

"You know," he says when she breaks away to restore oxygen. "I don't do that outside of sealing a deal," he admits.

Eve blinks at him owlishly. 

"You don't kiss just for fun? Aren't you a demon?"

Eddie barks out a laugh. 

"I guess kissing is too tame for our tastes." 

"What's your taste?" she asks, curiosity radiating off of her in hot waves. 

He hums, caressing her side.

"Insane witches, apparently."

"What do you do with them?" she presses on, her leg moving dangerously high up his body, the coarse hair of his thighs not enough to deter her.

"Well, personally..." Eddie likes to play with his food, a habit he couldn't shake since his childhood, so he rolls away from Eve to lie on his side instead. To placate her, he starts playing with the hair that grow low on her belly. "I collect the resurrected witches and show them around. You'll get a tour of Hell and any other realms you wish to see, and then I'll help you settle wherever you feel like."

With every word, the pout on her face only grows. 

"You're not keeping me?" she asks, playing up the whine in her voice, but he knows there are genuine feelings behind it. 

"Witches aren't meant to be tied down," he explains apologetically. "They're free spirits abusing the laws of reality." He reaches for her hand to press a kiss against her fingers. "It's a power best wielded in solitude."

She pries her hand away and sits up.

"Why would I want the power if I can't share it? Don't witches have like... familiars? Or something?"

Eddie frowns.

"A witch of your power doesn't need one. They're meant to amplify and aid spells, and you're pretty much on the same level as a common demon."

"Are you a common demon?"

"Yes," he nods. 

"So we can't make a deal?" she presses on. 

His frown deepens. 

"Why would you want a deal with someone equal in power? Deals are made between a master and a servant."

"But is it not possible? Can't I have an equal by my side? A partner in crime?"

Maybe he should backtrack on her being his favorite. She's asking too many questions, ones he's not used to from a freshly reborn witch. He sighs. 

"Technically you can, but it's an exclusive deal. You're tied for eternity, you belong to each other. It's not a common practice," he says, playing off what he's been told and overheard. "Master-servant contracts have an expiration date and are easier to break. I'm not sure a deal like that could even be broken."

Eve wraps her hands around her knees, processing the information. 

"So I could tie a demon, or an equally powerful being, to myself for all eternity?" 

Somehow, Eddie doesn't like the idea of Eve making a deal like that with a random demon. He nods, though.

"Yes."

"Let's say I'd want to do that with you, right now. How would that look?" she asks curiously. 

He thinks about it, imagines it, and it pains him deep into his core. 

"A simple deal is sealed with a kiss or a blood pact. A deal between equals requires an intercourse."

"Huh."

The idea doesn't seem appalling to her, which doesn't surprise him at this point. He can feel her eyes sliding down his body.

"You're not going to find my dick like that," he says with amusement. 

She huffs but doesn't budge, searching his gaze instead. 

"Wouldn't you want to make me yours? And you mine?"

Eddie considers it. 

"I never thought about it before," he admits. "Is that something you'd want?"

She lays back on the grass with a sigh. 

"I'm just tired of being alone. Of nobody staying. You're the nicest person I've met in years, and you're not even human." He laughs at that, and she turns towards him with a smile. "You burnt a village for me." She frowns. "Unless you do that for all the witches."

Eddie quickly shakes his head. Too quickly.

"Only the most mistreated ones," he admits. 

"Is it a pity thing, then?"

"No," he protests again. "I wanted to do something nice for you."

Eve smiles. 

"Thank you."

He smiles back, and when he leans down, she meets him for a lazy kiss. 

"Would you make me yours?" she asks when they part and the offer sounds alarmingly tempting. 

"You should meet other demons before making a commitment like that," he says, and she rolls her eyes. Then, his ears twitch as he finds the perfect distraction for them both. 

"You ready to hunt?" he smiles down at her, wide and dangerous. "Someone escaped the fire."

[ababanerb]

“so this is where it begins” katsuki bakugo

part two to this

 summary: katsuki bakugo is more patient than he seems, and izuku midoriya isn’t as determined as he thought he was. 

warnings: some angst mostly fluff, some fem!reader bits (i tried my best), the ending that could have been different but it isn’t and that’s okay, life is weird, and so are feelings

Katsuki Bakugo is a patient man, and even though he’s brash and foul-mouthed, he doesn’t mind waiting if it’s you that he’s waiting on. He’s waited for you since the day he’d first met you, really met you. He’d been waiting since the second day of high school, when you’d kicked everybody’s asses in the battle trials. And he wondered if he could really wait that long when you came oh-so close to beating him during the Sports Festival in your first year. He learned he’d have to. Deku had beaten him to the punch, and Katsuki Bakugo decided that if anybody or anything was worth waiting for, it was you.

And after almost four years, he doesn’t have to wait anymore.

You look stunning, and he wonders why you look so nervous even after living with him for six months in the little apartment the two of you had rented. He’d asked himself so many times why he tortured himself and waited for you, but he doesn’t wonder why anymore.

“Do I look alright?” You ask, like it’s even a question, and Katsuki has to take a moment to stare at you. To take you in.

“Baby, you’re brilliant,” Katsuki says, and it comes out like a whisper. He’d waited so long for this, for you, and now he has you. He has you right in front of him, and he can’t help himself from pulling you into a kiss so fervent and passionate that you knew nobody had ever kissed you quite like he did.

And you forget that there’d ever been a time where you didn’t have him right there behind you. Always ready to catch you if you fell. You forget that there’s ever been anybody else.

                                                          x x x

Izuku Midoriya waits for you to call him, coming home from long days at a job that he regrets taking. He comes home, and he greets you because he forgets that you aren’t with him anymore, and he waits for the gentle praise and embrace you’d always offered him. 

He tells himself that he did the right thing, that leaving you behind was the only way to become the hero he’d dreamed of being ever since he was a little kid. And he’s almost there, he’s so close to his dream and it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel as good as he thought it would.

So, he calls you. 

“Pick up, pick up, pick up,” He mutters, listening to the dial tone before his phone starts to ring.

“The number you dialed is not available. Please leave a message after the tone.”

And he does, a few quiet breaths as he figures out what he wants to say and how to say it, and then, “I miss you, Y/N.”

Izuku hangs up then, realizing he doesn’t have anything else to say to you that could fix any of the mess that he made. His apartment feels so empty, and any indication that he’d ever had a life with somebody else is nonexistent. There’s a framed photo of him and his mother at the airport on his last day in Japan that sits on the entertainment console. He hates looking at it though, because you should have been there, you should be here.

Izuku Midoriya waits six months for you to tell him to come home, for the world to tell him to go home. Nobody tells him to go home. Izuku Midoriya ends his four year contract early.

So, the determined Izuku Midoriya wasn’t so determined, and Izuku Midoriya came home three and a half years early without telling a soul. And when he finally comes home, you’re everywhere. And so is Katsuki. It’d only been six months, and you and Katsuki had climbed higher than Izuku ever could have hoped to climb in America.

But if there’s one thing that Izuku has ever been determined about other than being a hero, it was you.

                                                      x x x

Katsuki is easily the most brilliant man you know, and he understands you better than anybody you’ve ever worked with, and he makes sure that everybody knows it. He’s smug about it, and he brags about you every chance he gets, and he loves you so much that nobody even tries to say a single nasty word to or about you.

And it’s all great until he comes home with little explosions popping in his palms and face you haven’t seen him make since your second year at UA.

“What’s up with you, Sweaty?” The gentle tease in your voice meant to cool him off, and it does, but not enough.

“Stupid fucking Deku,” Katsuki grumbles to you before he’s pulling you into him and flopping onto the couch with his face buried into the crook of your neck.

“Midoriya?” 

You’d almost entirely forgotten about the green-haired man. You’d spent three months getting over him, and Katsuki had been there to help you in any way you could have needed. Your ex had completely slipped your mind.

Katsuki nods, a soft grumble of affirmation rumbling through his chest and into yours.

“Damn nerd was asking to see you,” Katsuki mumbles, voice muffled by the soft cotton of your shirt and the way he keep digging his face into your chest, “Was askin’ me if you deserved better and stupid shit.”

You sigh and run your fingers through his hair, “I don’t want to see him. At all. And you’re more than I could ever ask for, ‘Tsuki.”

Katsuki hums something into your collarbone, and he has to lift up his head so he can whisper into your ear, “Are you gonna talk to him?”

“Maybe.”

Three days later, Deku catches you coming into the agency, and you let him stop you in the middle of the lobby.

“Y/N,” Deku looks panicked, like this is it for him, but you’d reached the end a long time ago, “Can we talk?”

You open your mouth, to say something, anything, to tell him to fuck off, that he’s an asshole.

“About what?” Katsuki asks, he’s changed into his civilian clothes and his hairs a little wet from using the locker room showers, and he slings a beefy arm around your waist and tugs you in close. You quietly relish in the natural security he carries, wrapping your arms around one of his as you stare Izuku down.

“Y/N, you deserve better,” Izuku tells you, completely ignoring the blonde, “I saw a little café down the street, we can drop in there, get a bite to eat?”

“They deserves somebody who won’t just fuckin’ ditch her out of nowhere,” Katsuki snarls at him, and you move so he’s in front of you, not wanting to risk getting burnt by his hands that have been popping more and more steadily or getting shocked by the green electricity that Izuku’s emitting in response. “She deserves somebody who actually gives a damn. They’re too good for you and me. It took you six months without them to realize that they’re not disposable, Deku! I knew from day one that they were brilliant. A damn sun and a half.”

Izuku makes the first move, and it’s messy and it devolves into a fight without Quirks. Just punching and kicking and screaming in mangled Japanese. And the longer you watch the harder it is to keep the anger you’d felt toward Izuku for so long down in the bottoms of your feet. 

It takes security thirty minutes to break the two of them apart, and when they do you’re already at Katsuki’s side.

“Is this the end?” Katsuki asks you, and you shake your head.

“No, this is where it begins,” And he smiles, cradling the back of your head with one hand as he wraps an arm around your waist so he can pull you into a kiss.

“Izuku,” You look at him from over your shoulder, and he looks as hurt as you’d felt all those months ago, “This is the end. We’ve been over for too long for you to come back to me now.”

                                                     x x x

Katsuki Bakugo doesn’t mind that it took him four years to have you, even if the two of you did hit more than a few speed bumps at the beginning of your relationship.

Because he has you now, and you look oh so beautiful in white. He doesn’t wonder why he waited so long for you now.

“Do I look alright?” You ask, and he thinks that it’s a stupid question, because you’re little apartment in the city became a two-story house in a nice neighborhood and six months quickly turned into five and a half years. And despite everything, Midoriya stands next to Kirishima in Katsuki’s line of groomsmen.

“Baby,” Katsuki whispers, and he tries not to let his voice crack because nobody needs to know that he’s crying right now, “You’re brilliant.”

And finally, finally, he has you. And nobody needs to tell him twice to kiss you, and he doesn’t even care if the pictures come out good or not. You don’t either, because when you get home that night you give him his wedding gift.

“I bought you diamonds,” You joke, handing a slim rectangle, and he laughs with you, the two of you tipsy on champagne and the feeling Katsuki Bakugo hadn’t been able to define when he’d first met you.

His gift is a little plastic stick with two pink lines on it.

“You’re not joking, are you?”

You shake your head, and you can’t help the wide smile that spilts your face in two as Katsuki drops to his knees and buries his face into your belly.

so, this is where it begins.

[tomtenadia]

A Little Braver - 24

Hello everyone! Here we are with chapter 24

It’s winter in Orynth and the guys have a busy day. Rowan and Lorcan enjoy their ride with the team and we also have some Elorcan gossip.

Rowan and Lorcan also talk and we discover something about Lyria...

Have fun!

The following morning Aelin woke up abruptly and missed the warm body at her side and curled under the duvet in a human burrito.

“Ro?” She called with just her head peeking from under her cover.

A moment later he sat down in bed offering her a cup of coffee.

“Cold.”

He leaned over to kiss her “it snowed last night. There’s over a metre of snow outside.”

“Lovely,” she protested “heaters fires, accidents, roof collapses due to snow, slips, more road accidents, pile ups.”

“Doom and gloom this early in the morning?”

She groaned and grabbed the coffee, sitting up with still the duvet all around her “I love snow and winter, but on my day off.” She took a sip of her coffee “house fires increase wildly. All those mantlepieces not properly attended. Electrical fires because too many appliances are connected to an outlet. And let’s not forget carbon monoxide related deaths. Such a magical time.”

“We’ll build a snowman when you are off shift.”

Then he offered her a plate full of scrambled eggs and bacon.

“You definitely know how to woo a woman.” She grabbed the plate and tucked in happily.

“You and Lorcan need to stay on the truck. No matter what’s going on outside.”

Rowan nodded “we will.” And he kissed her head. He was really looking forward to ride with the team.

An hour later they were walking across the yard in front of the station when Lorcan and Elide arrived as well. Together. Hand in hand.

Aelin tugged Rowan gently and he nodded.

“Arriving together?” Joked Aelin “naughty, naughty girl.”

Elide smiled “yes, I slept at Lorcan’s. Guilty.”

“Hey, I am just happy for you two.” 

The four walked into the station and while Elide and Aelin went to get changed, the two men went to the common room where some members of the team were already there.

“The posh boys are here.” Shouted Aedion as soon as they stepped in.

Rowan bowed “indeed we are.” Then he noticed two new women and went to introduce himself “Hi, I am Rowan.”

“This is Borte, our new truck candidate,” Aedion went to the woman’s side and made the introductions “he is the captain’s flying boy,” then he pointed at Lorcan “grumpy pants over here is Lorcan. He grunts a lot but does not bite. And he’s Elide’s.”

Rowan burst out laughing.

“This young lady here is Evangeline.” And he moved to the side of the blonde-haired woman “she is our paramedic in training. She is riding with Lys and Elide.”

Rowan greeted her back and she gave him a timid smile.

Aelin arrived a moment later and went to give a kiss on the cheek of her cousin “did you remove all the snow from the entrance all alone?”

“No, he had two minions.” Said Brullo sprawled on the sofa watching tv “the man is a tyrant.”

“My arms are useless.” Complained Ress.

Aelin patted both on the shoulders “well, better get ready for a busy day. From the pile of reports I have on my desk from second shift it looks like we are in for a treat.”

“Are truck and engine all stocked up and ready?”

Aedion nodded “I did a check and we are good.”

“Lys and Elide are doing a final check on the ambulance for supplies.”

In that instant dispatch alarm went off calling all units of east station on site for a structure fire.

“Here we go guys.” They all scrambled, wore their gear and reached the trucks.

“You two, in there and stay put, ok?”

The two men nodded.

The trucks left the station and Rowan felt a thrill run through his spine.

“What’s a structure fire?”

“Bad news,” joked Brullo at Rowan’s side.

“Or usually, what we call Monday.” Added Aelin never averting the eyes from the road.

Rowan stared at Nox driving and was impressed at the skill. He navigated busy intersections with confidence.

Aelin honked the horn a few times “move, you idiots.” The traffic peeled to the side and the engine resumed its run swiftly.

Once they arrived at the site Rowan gasped. The fire had enveloped the entire house.

“That is a structure fire,” said Aelin and the team got off truck and engine and Aelin started to give orders.

“Manon, Luca, venting the back.”

“Wes you are taking second floor with me. Aedion, Kyllian, Nox, you go to the first floor. Borte you go with them and stick to Aedion. Asterin, Ansel, you do ground floor. Brullo, Ren you are at the water lines. We need to be quick.”

Both Rowan and Lorcan were watching the scene speechless.

“I know she does this on a daily basis, but seeing her jumping into a building on fire is different than just imagining it.”

Dorian arrived on the scene a moment later and got an update from Brullo and Ren who were ready with the water lines.

“Chief, captain, you have two minutes to finish primary search and rescue then you all evacuate.” He looked up at the fire and flinched “Manon, how’s that venting going?”

“Venting now, sir.”

Temporary relief washed over him when he saw Nox run out with a woman in tow.

Lorcan’s eyes set on Elide, jumping in the woman’s rescue with Lysandra.

Rowan stared as more firefighters came out with people but never Aelin. He noticed Dorian staring at the fire nervously “Evacuate now.” He ordered over the radio. The chief must have noticed a change in the fire to call for abandoning the rescue. Rowan followed in fascination trying to remember some of the thing about fire he had read in Aelin’s books.

Aelin was walking low, almost crawling looking for people hiding below the smoke “fire department call out.”

“I am all clear, we need to go.” Said Wesley at her back.

Aelin had a last look around and was about to leave the room when she heard a voice “Wes, get out. I got this.”

“Cap, we need to go. The chief ordered us to evacuate.”

“Wes, get out.” She shouted and left, running to the locked door where she heard the voice coming from.

She gave her back to the door and kicked it open. Then she turned and saw a crib and inside there was a toddler. 

“Aelin, get the hell out now.” Dorian’s voice came over the radio. She picked up the boy and squeezed him in her fire jacket and held him close for protection.

“Come on… come on…” Rowan heard Dorian’s order and his heart was racing painfully. Why wasn’t she listening?

Then he saw it the flareup in her floor and shouted “Aelin, please…”

Aelin looked around the room and realised the flashover had cut off her only exit route. Then ran to the window and with her elbow she smashed the glass all while holding the infant.

“There!” shouted someone from a lower level.

“Ress, move the aerial to her.” 

Aelin leaned over and sat astride on the window ledge.

Aedion ran up the aerial and grabbed the toddler “I got him, get your arse in here.”

She was about to fully climb over when another flashover rocked the house and Aelin got thrown off balance and grabbed the ledge with her hands and hung there.

Aedion saw her and ran back up “give me a hand.” The man grabbed a hand and pulled her over on the aerial.

“You are fucking crazy.” He told her quietly.

She followed him down and she was on the street again.

“I said evacuate.” Shouted Dorian.

“Don’t.” She bit back “I saved that boy’s life.” 

“Sit.” Dorian ordered her. Aelin removed her mask and marched off to sit against the truck, rotating her shoulders to ease the pain.

Lysandra passed her a bottle of water “are you okay?”

Aelin nodded while drinking eagerly and watching while the rest of the team put the fire out.

Rowan opened the door of the engine and went to her “you are insane. And I think I almost lost it in there.”

“I am fine.” She told him quietly extending her hand to him.

He marched back in the engine, joining Lorcan.

“Do you still think women can’t do dangerous jobs?” He bit back. A part of him was a bit mad at Aelin. What she did had been insane. But he could not ignore the deep sense of pride he had in her. He was utterly in love with a super badass woman. He watched as the team slowly wrapped up their jobs. Dorian had called for a secondary search and they were getting out the burnt down house right now. Aelin still sitting on the front bumper of the truck grounded by Dorian.

He looked at her and smiled. She was covered in soot but she still looked stunning to him. Rowan turned his head and saw Lorcan still studying Elide while she went from victim to victim and checked them out with Lysandra.

“I think I am badly in love with Elide.” He said very, very quietly.

“You what?”

“You heard me, Whitethorn. Don’t make me say it twice.”

“Would it be so bad?” Asked Rowan, sitting beside him.

“I don’t want to fuck this up.”

“Well, don’t.” In that instant the door opened and the team climbed back in. He took a seat behind Aelin and with his hand extended he brushed her cheek and she took his hand gently “did you enjoy the show?”

“It was literally terrifying.”

“Main to all units. Car accident on Southside. Multiple vehicles involved.”

“Copy that main, east station is en route. Dispatch an ambulance on site. Our one is on its way to Orynth general.” Replied Aelin over the radio.

“Copy that east. We are sending an ambulance to assist.”

“Punch it, Nox.”

“You two boys are in for a ride. A nice fire and a car pile-up. We just need a chemical spillage and most of the fun is complete.”

“Don’t jink it,” said Asterin from behind.

They drove for a short distance and at the site Rowan looked out of the window and saw a few cars all smashed against each other.

Aelin and the team got off engine and truck and she patted at his window and blew him a kiss and ran away.

Seeing her in action he suddenly realised why she ate so much.

“Luca, you come with me we’ll take the upturned car.” She shouted at the youngster “Aedion, take the red one with Ansel and Borte. Everyone spread and take the other cars. Remember fuel leaks.”

Luca grabbed his tools and started trying to pry open the door. 

Aelin kneeled down and checked the woman “I need a c-collar,” she screamed to the paramedics.

The woman’s head was bloodied, she checked the pulse through the cracked window and found it weak and she was not breathing.

Luca finally did manage to get the door open and together they pulled it away. Aelin sneaked into the front of the car and pulled the collar around the woman’s neck.

Lysandra and Elide were back from the hospital run and joined them ready and waiting for their patient.

“Aelin, you need to pull her out quickly.”

“I know,” snapped Aelin trying to cut the belt. Once the belt was free she realised the woman’s legs were stuck.

“Luca, I need spreaders. Right now.” She told him and the young man ran to the truck to grab the tool. He came back and with some acrobatics Aelin placed the tool in the area where the pedals were and started separating the metal. “As soon as she is free grab her.”

The metal slowly bent and freed the woman’s legs. “Go.” Luca took the woman and passed her in the care of the paramedics.

“Evangeline, grab an intubation kit and intubate the woman.”

The young woman nodded and Aelin stared with worry.

Once she was intubated Elide and Lysandra continued to do all possible to revive the woman. Aelin and Luca towered over them ready to help if needed.

She saw them use a defibrillator.

“Pushing epi.” She heard Elide say and Aelin knew from her emergency medical training that it was bad.

She paced nervously running a hand in her dirty hair. She took stock of the situation and noticed a few people out of the cars and being helped out and looked after by the other ambulances. Good at least the others did manage to save someone.

Aelin heard the long continuous beep of a flat line and realised the woman did not make it. Then she heard Lysandra calling it.

“Sorry, Aelin.”

Luca was at her side in an instant “cap, we did all we could.”

“Well, it was not enough.” She snapped while in her head she started going through all she could have done differently.

“Aelin,” Lysandra stood to face her friend “there was very little you could have done differently.” Knowing exactly where her friend’s mind had wandered off “She was in bad shape already. We did all we could, as Luca said.”

Dorian joined them a moment later “Aelin, come.”

They moved to the side “Get it out of the system quickly. Yes, you lost one person and it hurts, but I kept an eye on you and you haven’t done anything that I wouldn’t have done myself. You tried. But that was the car in worst shape.” He patted her shoulder “think about the boy you saved from the fire. Think about the second chance you gave him.”

Aelin nodded and walked away and joined her team in packing up all the gear once they were done. 

Once she climbed back on the engine she looked at Rowan and his expression was full of worry for her. Gods, she just wanted to melt in his arms for ten minutes and shut down everything. She felt his hand sneak in the space between seat and door and try to grab hers. He didn’t say anything. He just held her hand.

They arrived back at the station not long after.

Aelin got off the engine and started removing her turnout gear.

“Aedion, take Borte and show her the checks to do to the engines after a call. I’ll take the equipment. Before heading to their duties they all ran to the bathrooms to remove the layers of soot and dirt from the two calls.

Once everyone had stored their gear Aelin hid in the room for equipment and began doing her checks and clean it. She needed some time alone.

Ten minutes later a head of silver hair peeked through the open door “hey,” he said quietly.

“Come in,” she said to him and Rowan took a step in and sat on the bench at her side.

“I am in awe.” His knuckles brushed her cheek “I had an idea of what you guys did, but seeing it for real. I was amazed. But also utterly terrified.”

“I could not help that woman, though.” She said sadly, placing a mask on the ground “she died.”

“Fireheart, I heard what Dorian said and I agree. I am sure you did all you could. Her car looked in pretty banged up state from my corner. If she survived it would have been a big damn miracle.”

“I know,” she let out a loose breath “I know.” Her head heavy against a jacket “it’s just not easy. I knew she was in bad conditions but I still wanted to save her.”

“Come here.” He pulled her to him “I have a piece of gossip for you.”

Her head whipped to him and he saw a smile finally appear.

“Lorcan admitted to me he thinks he is badly in love with Elide.”

Aelin’s hand went to her mouth in surprise “this is big.”

Rowan nodded “I don’t think he told her yet. He is just worried he will mess it up.”

“He’d better not. Elide has strong feelings for him as well. He breaks her heart and I will have his head.”

He nodded “I have been keeping an eye on him.”

“Good, now go back to the others and let me finish.”

He leaned forward and kissed her deeply. Aelin dropped what she had in her hands and once free they grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him closer to her and then on top of her as she leaned back on the bench. He caged her head between his arms and was about to kiss her again when dispatch alarm went off.

“Really?” She stood quickly and kisses him “stay at the station.” He nodded and she ran out. And he walked out slowly and joined Lorcan and both men stared at the vehicles leave the floor.

“Are they alway this busy? They have been back for forty minutes.”

Rowan sighed “Aelin mentioned this morning that with snow, things tend to get busier.” Then he had an idea “ever built a snowman?”

Lorcan rolled his eyes “yes, I was a kid once too, remember?”

“Get your coat back on and come with me.”

Once both men were ready with warm clothes Rowan walked outside to the front of the fire station near the entrance “Here.” Said Rowan pointing at the spot.

“Here what?”

“The snowman. To cheer them up. They had a stressful morning and probably it will not slow down.”

Lorcan tied his hair and started rolling the snow to form a ball for the body. Rowan smiled and joined him, preparing a second one. Once Lorcan had the bottom part ready, Rowan lifted the second one on top and both started fixing the body to give it an even shape. Then Rowan created a smaller ball for the head. Once done he lifted the final piece and took a step back to look at their work “not too bad.”

Lorcan removed his scarf and placed it around the snowman’s neck. Then Rowan ran back inside in Aelin’s office and grabbed the plastic fake firefighter hat he had won the day they did drills, got back and placed it on the snowman. Finally they gave him eyes and a mouth and Lorcan added some wooden sticks at the side so that they looked like arms.

Rowan looked around and then spotted something more he could add. He ran to a corner and picked up an abandoned tool.

“What is that?”

Rowan lifted the tool “I think Aelin called it an Halligan bar. The guys use it to pry open things.” He explained placing it near the sticky hand of the snowman “now he looks perfect.”

Once they were done the two men went back into the station and decided to prepare a meal for them “they must be famished.”

Lorcan nodded “I agree. Let’s prepare a nice meal.”

They were halfway through making lunch when they heard the trucks finally return and both ran outside, and only truck and engine appeared. The ambulance must have gone to the hospital.

Rowan’s eyes landed on a wet Aelin, her body wrapped in a few thick blankets. He ran to her and wrapped his arms around her frame. She was freezing and he felt her shiver and her teeth clattering “What happened?” His hands brushed her back quickly.

“We had two calls. Another fire and then a kid who fell in the water while skating on the frozen lake in a park. Aelin grabbed the kid but fell in when the rope dropped.” Explained Aedion.

As on pure instinct Rowan got into action. He took Aelin and dragged her to her quarters “we need to get you out of those wet clothes.”

She stood in front of him shaking and hugging the blankets against her body. Slowly he helped her remove all the layers until she was stark naked in front of him.

“Any..” teeth clattering “any excuse to get me naked.” Her tone was deep with tiredness.

He chuckled and went to the shower block to grab some towels and once back he begun drying her up.

“I’ll be back in a second.” Rowan disappeared once more and this time went to Aedion “do you have any spare clothes for Aelin?”

The man nodded and he was back a few minutes later with a pile of dry clothes in his hands “how is she doing?”

“Trying to warm her up.” He was about to move away when he turned to the man “what the heck happened?”

“Aelin wanted Borte to practice with the ropes in a real situation so she had Borte drop her in the ice crack to help the boy. The girl lost hold of the rope. It happened so fast that I was not quick enough to grab her,” he explained “She kept diving in in the cold water until she grabbed the boy. Only once he was safe she let us help her out.”

“You should have taken her to the hospital.” Rowan bit back annoyed.

“Don’t you think we tried?” Aedion matched him in tone “she is stubborn. She refused treatment.” 

Rowan growled and grabbed the clothes “thanks for this.” And ran back to her quarters.

Aelin was sitting on her bed, the blankets still wrapped around her.

“I have dry clothes for you.”

“I have spare bra and knickers in my locker. The combination is your birthday.” Her speech was slow and he could feel her exhaustion.

Rowan gave her a smirk and rushed out once again and returning not long after with the garments.

“My underwear doesn’t scare you anymore?”

Rowan chuckled “we live together and I have seen enough of your daring lingerie not to be affected.”

Aelin slowly dressed up again and when she was done Rowan pulled back the blankets and pushed her legs under and finished drying her hair “now you relax, I’ll see if I can get some hot food for you.” A gentle kiss on her head.

Rowan then went to Lorcan and asked him to make something hot for her. She was still shivering hard and he was getting very nervous.

He was back in her quarters when Lysandra popped in with a bag in her hands “do you mind if I check on her?”

He stood “no, please.”

Lysandra took her temperature “still 33 degrees. It was 32 when we took her out.” She grabbed the transparent bag at her side “this is an IV of warm saline, it will help her and should bring her temperature up.”

“Lorcan is making something hot for her.”

Lysandra nodded “have water at her side as well.” And Rowan nodded “it might take a while before her temperature goes up again and she will be exhausted.”

The woman then hanged the IV bag against the edge of her closet and left.

Dispatch alarm went off again and Aelin made a move but Rowan stopped her “you are not going anywhere.”

“I-I am the cap-captain. I have to.” She was still shivering from the cold.

He ran to the apparatus floor “Aedion, Aelin is not coming. She is still cold.”

“I was not expecting her to. I told Dorian she is out for today.”

“Thank you.”

The man nodded.

“Stay safe, all of you.”

Lorcan met him halfway “I am making soup.”

Rowan patted his arm “thank you.”

“Lorcan is making you soup.” He announced as he got back to her “we’ll go home as soon as you are feeling warmer.”

“I am fine.”

“No,” he brushed his hand through her hair “you are still shivery. You eat something hot. Warm up and then we’ll see.”

“I should be with the guys.”

Rowan shook his head “Aedion alerted Dorian and told him you are out for the day.”

Aelin was about to reply but Lorcan joined them carrying a bowl with hot soup.

“How is our fearless leader doing?” He asked while placing the bowl on her night stand with a spoon on the side.

“Still feeling cold.”

“I hope you’ll like the soup. I made it the other night for Elide and she loved it.”

“Thank you, Lorcan.”

He gave her a quick salute and a tight smile and disappeared.

“Are we sure he is the same man?”

Rowan shrugged and grabbed the bowl but Aelin snatched it from his hands “don’t you dare and try to spoon feed me. Stop fussing, captain.”

“Fine.” He stood “I’ll leave you to it.” And left.

He reached Lorcan who was sitting on the sofa watching tv.

“You okay?” He sat beside him.

“Yeah. I put the food away until they are back.” He sighed “I thought we had it bad in our last mission but the guys don’t seem to have too much downtime either.”

“Yeah, today is pretty bad. I saw them on slow days when they have even time to play games. Today has been hell.”

“How’s Aelin doing?”

Rowan’s head snapped in his direction “this is the first time you finally call her with her name. It’s always the captain or your woman.”

Lorcan cleared his voice almost embarrassed “I am starting to like her.”

“Good because I am planning on keeping her around.”

“At least she is not whiny.”

Rowan sighed. He knew Lorcan never liked Lyria. He was the only person who had been the most vocal about his disagreement in him marrying the woman. His other friends were not her fans but had shown him support when he proposed and after. Lorcan had always made his opinion clear. He had told him in his face that he was marrying the wrong woman.

“Well, at least you approve of this one.”

Lorcan snorted “damn man, there is no comparison. Lyria used the marriage to try and change you into her puppet and when it did not work she lost it and became this jealous bitch.” He stood and paced “she came to me and begged me to invent an excuse to fire you.”

“I did not know.”

“I never told you because for some crazy reason you seemed attached to her. Truth is… the woman was toxic.” He stopped in front of Rowan “Essar told me she saw her a few times in a club with another man, while we were away.”

Rowan leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes “that I suspected, just as much as I suspected that the baby was not mine.” He confessed “before we deployed for the mission in which I had to go home for her funeral I found the divorce paper she had ready.”

“And you still grieved.”

“She was my wife.” He almost shouted “yes, she was not perfect but I loved her.”

“Loved her as much as you love Aelin? Because in all the time I have known you I have never seen you with a woman the way you are with Aelin.”

“No, not even close.”

“Would you marry her?”

Rowan only indulged on that thought once. It was far too early. They had just started to actually build their relationship. He was happy where they were right now.

“Not while I am still on active duty. I promised myself that next time I get married I will not be an absent husband again. And I want a family one day. I just need to hold on for a bit. Less than five years and the prison is over.”

“I can make a few calls and get you a full time position at pilot school. I know you have been having issue with the force recently but your skills are vital.”

Rowan shook his head “Thanks but no. Once I retire I will be out forever and I have another path in mind. I want to train to become a paramedic and work in a firehouse.”

“Well, I guess your time as nurse Whitethorn will come handy on your application.”

Rowan flipped him off and patted his leg “let me go and check on Aelin.”

He left Lorcan and joined Aelin and found her wrapped under the blankets with just her face peeking out. Her phone against the head of the bed. He smiled when he saw the bowl completely empty. Good.

“Hey you,” he sat her side and brushed her head “how are you feeling?”

“Not great and I can’t seem to shake the cold from my bones and I feel so tired.”

He lay down at her side and tucked her against his body and looked at the saline bag “the IV is almost finished.”

“You need skin to skin to keep me warm.”

He flipped her nose “we can’t do that here at the fire station so this is it for now.”

“I am going to write a review on the sexy nurse website that sent you and complain that I am not satisfied with the service.”

“Menace.”

“Are the guys still out?”

Rowan nodded “Lorcan prepared lunch for everyone and I hope they will have time to sit down and eat when they come back.”

Rowan nodded “what were you watching?” He asked as he noticed her phone playing a movie.

“I don’t know a random fantasy series Netflix recommended. I wasn’t paying much attention.”

He bent his legs and placed the phone against them and put an arm around her shoulder “well, let’s watch trash tv together.” He made sure she was all tucked in and cozy.

Eventually he heard the squad come back in the station, turned his head and noticed Aelin napping. He stood and joined the team at the front. They all looked exhausted and he hoped Lorcan’s meal would be enough to cheer them up.

“I saw our new frozen candidate.” Joked Brullo while shedding his turnout gear.

“Lorcan and I thought it would cheer you up guys.”

The tall dark-haired man joined them as well “I have loads of food ready. Come and eat before you get called again.”

The team cheered and scrambled into the kitchen. Aedion joined Rowan “how is she doing?”

“Warming up but tired. She is sleeping now.”

“How was the last call?” Asked Lorcan curious.

“Drunken driver. Crashed into a car with a family. The father is a goner and one of the kids is in bad shape.” Explained Manon reining in her rage.

Lorcan cursed savagely “the bastard.”

The conversation died after that, the topic too hard to even add anything else.

“Thank you for lunch, both of you,” said Elide, giving a smile to both Lorcan and Rowan.

“Honestly, it was all Lorcan, I was busy playing nurse.” Added Rowan.

In that moment Dorian popped in.

“Chief!” Shouted Ren “come have food.”

The chief sat down and joined the team “how are you all doing? You guys had a long day.”

No one said much “I went at the hospital and checked on the last family you saved from the drunken driver. The doctors are confident the boy will make a full recovery with time.”

Everyone sighed in relief.

He took a bite “how is Aelin doing?”

“She is in her bunk, sleeping under a pile of blankets. She is very tired and cold.” Rowan explained.

“Is she warming up now?”asked Lysandra “she was showing some very early stages of hypothermia. Her temperature was around 32 degree when we pulled her out.”

“She did not accept to be taken to the hospital.” Pointed out Aedion with a bit of annoyance in his voice.

“I heard that.” Continued Dorian “we should have pushed her. Aelin can be stubborn.”

 A few snorts echoed in the room.

In that instant Aelin walked into the room with her hoodie on and a blanket around her.

“Hey,” Rowan stood and went to her “what are you doing here?”

“I didn’t want to be alone.” And she sat heavily in Rowan’s lap, never letting the blanket go.

“How are you feeling?”

“Hungry,” she croaked.

Everyone laughed and Rowan gave her his seat and placed a plate in front of her. Lysandra sneaked in and took her temperature very quickly “35.5 you are almost back to normal. Do you still feel cold?”

Aelin took a bite “I still don’t feel great.”

“That is normal. Your body went through a lot of shock.” Explained Elide.

“Captain Whitethorn, make sure she takes tomorrow off. This is an order.” Said Dorian staring at the other man. 

“I am getting used to play nurse.”

Lorcan snorted “you can ask Lysandra or Elide to give you a ride in the ambulance, paramedic Whitethorn.��� Rowan glared at him. That was something he had confessed only to Aelin and Lorcan.

“What is he talking about?” Asked Brullo curiously.

“I…” Rowan sighed “when I retire from the TAF in less than five years I want to retrain as a paramedic and work in a firehouse.”

“That is awesome,” shouted Asterin, sipping on her tea.

“You know that women will pretend to be sick to be treated by you?” Joked Ansel winking at him.

“Over my dead body.” Added Aelin while eating her food.

“If you need help to get into the program you let me know. I know it’s still a long time away, but, I work closely with the board and some of the trainers.” Added Dorian with a big smile.

Rowan nodded “thank you, sir. I will keep it in mind.”

“Are you sure you will be okay with leaving the airforce?” Asked Nox.

“I already did 12 years and signed up for five more a while ago. I will have no regrets when I retire.” He explained

Aedion was about to add something when dispatch alarm went off.

Dorian stood “come on guys. It’s one of those days.” Then he looked at Rowan “take her home.”

They all disappeared and Aelin sighed and drank more hot tea. Rowan and Lorcan tidied up the table and the kitchen.

*

It was an hour later when Rowan and Aelin got back home. He took her to the bedroom and she curled in bed hugging bird Rowan.

“Go under the blankets,” he said, pulling the duvet over her head “I can make you some tea.”

Aelin nodded “green tea, please?”

 He kissed her head “yes, milady.”

Rowan came back five minutes later with a pot of tea and a cup “here you go.” Then he touched her forehead with his hand “you seem to get warmer.” Another kiss on her head “that is good.”

He climbed in bed and opened his laptop and started Netflix “Fancy watching something silly?”

“Can we watch a stupid movie that we can make fun of?”

Rowan chuckled and browsed a few titles “what do you think?” He pointed at a movie “this one seems quite silly.”

Aelin nodded and he placed the laptop on their legs, bird Rowan tucked between them and then his arm went around Aelin’s and pulled her to him.

“You got a day off tomorrow. We can go to the theatre if you feel like it.”

Aelin’s head snapped toward him and she smiled “I’d love to.” She grabbed her phone and showed him something “have you seen this play?”

Rowan had a look on her phone and nodded and her saddened face broke his heart “hey,” he took her hand “we can go and see it. The first time I went I was on my own and I had no one with whom to enjoy it with.” She gave him a smile “I want to go with you. Also, it was another production. So it won’t be the same play.”

Aelin grabbed bird Rowan “yes, captain.” She said in a funny voice “I want to go to the theatre with you.” She brushed the toy in Rowan’s face “are you my boyfriend, sexy man?”

Rowan took the toy “you are actually cuter than your owner.”

“You are a mean man.” She hit him with a pillow.

“What do you think, birdie? She is also violent.” He hugged the toy “you and I we need to stick together, partner. Such a tyrant.”

“Well, I’ll let you two make out and I’ll go and make out with the last few chocolate brownies left.” She got off the bed and walked away swaying her hips on purpose to taunt Rowan “they are better boyfriend material than the current one.”

Rowan growled and got off the bed and padded quickly to the kitchen lifted her in his arms and placed her on the counter, his arms at either side of her.

Aelin’s stare was mischievous and she leaned over for a kiss but he moved away and Aelin pulled him back to her “come here, Whitethorn. Stop annoying me.”

“I should have really read the terms and conditions of this relationship.” He teased her moving a bit closer, reducing the space between their bodies.

“You might eventually get out of the airforce, but you are not getting out of this.” She whispered against his lips. Then tensed for a brief second realising the enormity of what she had just said. Truth was she did not want let go of him. A part of her, one that she kept still hidden, desired that they would one day become more. And those thoughts terrified her. She had gone from hating the man, to wishing he would never leave her. It was crazy but her heart was telling that what she was feeling was real.

Rowan stared at her, his pine green eyes on her and an expression that she could not read. Terror seeping through her that she had gone too far and ruined the moment.

“Is that a promise?” His voice low, almost hopeful, his gaze never averting hers. 

Aelin’s heart raced madly “if you want it.” She shook her head “I am sorry, it just came out.”

His hand joined hers on her knee and twinned his fingers to hers “did you mean it, though?”

Aelin slowly nodded and he smiled at her. His lips tugged up and the smile reached his eyes in a way that never fully happened before. The result left her breathless. Gods, he was even more stunning than usual. And she knew she had just seen a side of Rowan probably no one ever saw before. He smiled with others but she knew they were not full smiles. But this one… this one was something rare.

“And that’s all it matters for now.” His free hand brushed her face “there’s no hurry and I am loving this. Getting to know you. Spending time together. Spoiling you.”

“I am loving it too. So very much.” Her body inched closer “are you finally going to kiss me or you placed me on the counter to brag that you are taller than me?”

Rowan closed the distance and the kiss was everything but gentle. His hand shifted and grabbed her buttocks pulling her close while Aelin hands found their target on his back.

“We shouldn’t.” He pulled away “you need to rest.”

Aelin grabbed the collar of his t-shirt “you get me all wet and then back away? A nice energetic tumble in the sheets will get me all exhausted and ready for bed.”

Rowan did not answer, he just lifted her in his arms and her legs wrapped around his back and he carried her to the bedroom.

“Good boy.” She whispered.

And Rowan realised, while leaning forward to steal a kiss from her, that if he could do this for the rest of his existence, he’d be the happiest man of earth. 

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[thesmokingguns]

24 Hours

Word Count:3454

Request/ Summary: “Can i request one where nicki gets turned down by their makeup artist or like stand in manager and hes upset and he finds out the the manager just doesnt sleep with people she just met”

I tried to write this where she breaks rules for him and turns him down. He understands what her restrictions are but he can see that living by her strict rules she created for herself she is making herself unhappy.

I hope I hit the prompt you wanted!

A/N: This turned out longer than I expected it to be so sorry about that one. I do have three requests I’m writing right now on top of some of the stuff I am writing so you can all still make requests but I'm going to be saying it’s a two week wait for a new request right now. I also want to say I am going to write a third and fourth part to the 3am Duff series because I have no self control. Thank you for everyone being patient with me and all your kind words! If you want to be added to my tallest please message me or go HERE

Tag List: @thenobodies-inc​ , @littlemisscare-all​ , @agroupiewhore , @ayablackwood​

You were having a bad day. Not just a bad day but one of those days where everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. From morning to night it was the literal day from hell for you.

8:12am You woke up, an hour after you had hit snooze on your alarm, twelve minutes after you were supposed to leave your house to get to work.

8:34am After throwing yourself together and rushing out the door, you were running out of the apartment with the cup of coffee you had economically and time consciously thought to make. On the last step before you had escaped into the day you slipped, the hot coffee spilled all down the front of your red dress, because of course it was the one day you weren’t wearing black. Rushing back up the stairs you realized that the keys to get into your apartment were in your apartment, hanging on the hook just out of reach behind the door. So you would be going to work in your coffee dress.

9:01AM You made it to work, only thirty-one minutes late. Your boss wasn’t happy that you were late on a Friday, thinking you had done this on purpose as some slight to them. Which meant they had pulled you in the office and chewed you a new asshole.

They also told you about coming to work in a clean, tidy appearance as if you had wanted to be wearing your coffee.

As you were being yelled at you watched the line back up and couldn’t help but think about how yelling at you was just making the situation worse. You also were also thinking about how next time you’d just call in sick instead of being late.

11:59AM One minute before you were scheduled to take a break, one fucking minute, and the crazy man came in. Throwing his shit smelling money at you and proceeding to vomit all over your window.

Your window, your mess. So instead of having a much needed timeout from the day from hell you were trying to scrub the smell of puke off a counter.

1:47 PM You finally stepped out for lunch. Moving to the payphone to call your roommate. She thankfully answered on the second ring of the apartment phone. At least the door would be unlocked after work, which was one thing you had been worried about.

She was quick to tell you about how she had gotten you a gig for the night. Knowing how you wanted to travel, you two had come up with a plan a few months ago to find work in Hollywood for bands or on film sets. She had been pretty popular making costumes and helping to come up with whole concepts for the upcoming Glam Rock scene. One of her usual bands needed help because their makeup artist had been sick, so you were going to work for her tonight.

This would be considered a good thing but since it was a trial run you were not going to be getting paid for this gig. So your time would be free. The makeup you used on them you needed to provide. And you have to be there at 5PM to set up, which is the exact time that you need to get out of work. Your roommate agreed to help set you up and she was going to bring you a change of clothes to the gig. It would be fine because the band wouldn’t need to be made up until 6 or 7 but it was just another thing on your plate.

So you would be losing money that you needed to pay rent on a bunch of entitled rock stars who would probably not hire you and this whole night would just leave you feeling exhausted and annoyed. Really looking forward to it.

3:49PM Your coworker went home sick with a headache so now you had to do twice the amount of work and there was no hope in hell that you would be making it to the gig in time tonight. That great first impression that you would need to get an actual long job was gone. And you were stuck with a line out the door of people trying to cash their checks all seeming to want to kill you. Happy Friday.

5:02PM You were running down the street, thankful you worked around the corner from the venue. A sigh of relief left your lips seeing your roommate waiting for you. She dragged you inside pushing you towards a bathroom and giving you a bag of clothes to change into. You lined your brown eyes with the kohl liner, winging your eyeliner and adding a deep burgundy lip shade that complimented your darker skin.

“Y/N, hurry up.” you rolled your eyes, repacking the bag and heading out where your friend was waiting for you. “I put your makeup in the dressing room already. It’s not set up yet.” she pulled you down a few hallways. Equipment for the band was more around as they started getting ready to set up everything for the show.

You entered the dressing room, seeing there was a table for food and drinks set up,  a rack of costumes for the band to wear, and finally a vanity where your makeup bag was sitting ready to be unpacked. Your friend handed you a cup, pouring a few fingers worth of vodka into it before splashing in some juice to help the taste.

“Cheers,” you tapped red solo cups drinking heavily. If you weren’t going to get paid for the gig you might as well take advantage of whatever free perks came with it.

6:23PM Sitting on the couch, legs crossed, you were chatting aimlessly with your friend when the door opened and a man walked in looking at you confused.

“Hey, I’m Y/N. I’m the makeup artist for the night.” you were quick to introduce yourself not wanting him to think you were another girl who was just trying to sleep with the band.

“Mick.” he moved to pour himself a full cup of straight vodka, “Can you do my makeup now? The three pretty boys take too much time.” Ushering him into the seat you started out on him, wondering what the hell he meant about the other guys being divas.

7:45PM A blonde burst into the room, seeming surprised that you were standing there. The girl on his arm laughed too loudly and you looked over to your roommate who was handing Mick a belt to wear. She just shrugged, this was normal for her.

“Vince, new makeup artist. You should sit now before the Terror Twins stumble in.” Mick warned him. He pulled away from the girl on his arm headed over to your chair with an easy smile.

“You're going to make me prettier, doll?”

“I’m thinking that you would look with some blue eyeshadow. It would really complete your Malibu Barbie look.” You retorted, watching amused as his mouth dropped open, not used to having someone give it back to him.

You hated cocky assholes who thought that they were God’s gift. There was nothing wrong with a  man who was confident but the way that he was looking at himself in the mirror as you did his makeup you knew he was the type that thought he was above everyone else.

8:21PM  Two men burst into the room as you finished up Vince. Looking at the two taller men you let your eyes wander over them. Vince was a diva but there two were going to be where you had the most trouble. They must be tber terror twins Mick had mentioned.

One of the guys fell into the chair, laughing about something as he sipped the beer he was drinking, rubbing his nose. He lit up a cigarette as he sat back in the chair not seeming to care if it was annoying that he was blowing smoke in your face as you tried to work.

You bit your tongue, annoyed as you tried to work around his cigarette, that he almost burnt you with seven different times. As you worked you could feel a set of eyes on you. Looking up you saw the man he had walked in with, staring at you with these intense olive eyes.

There wasn’t a chance in hell that you would be interested in any of these loudmouth guys, who all seemed to be drunk and hyperactive. It was kind of like you were doing makeup for a bunch of chimps instead of men.

8:55PM Finally the last man was sitting in your chair. His eyes gazing up at you with such intensity you stopped moving around to just look at him.

“Have we met before?” there was something familiar about him and you wondered if you had met him at a bar or at a show before.

“I don’t think so, sweetheart. I’m Nikki.” Usually when a guy used a nickname instead of your given name you chalked it up to them being a douchebag but with him it seemed natural and not derogatory, “Thank you for coming out to do our makeup today. I heard the other artist got sick at the last minute. We appreciate you taking your time to help us out…” he left it blank waiting for you to give him your name.

“Y/N.” You were surprised by how talkative he was. The kindness in his tone is different from the way the other guys have been. Just when you thought he was different you felt a hand on the back of your thigh, “If you don’t get your hand off me I’ll break your fingers so you can’t play tonight.” you warned him, looking into the olive eyes gazing up at you.

He was too good looking. The type of guy you could get into trouble with if you allowed yourself but you wouldn’t be taking home a stranger tonight.

“Do you always talk to your clients like that?” he asked with a coy smile on his face. This was the type of smug you liked. The funny easy going type who could make you laugh if you had not been on your feet for twelve hours.

“Only the ones that don’t pay me.” you replied, swiping his eyeshadow on. You wanted this to be over so you could go home and sleep.

The drummer came over, bumping into the vanity and knocking the eyeshadow off and not seeming to notice as the makeup smashed into a thousand pieces on the ground. You were officially losing a lot of money on this job and didn’t have the funds to replace it.

“Jesus, T-Bone, watch where you’re going.” Nikki commented, watching you start to pack everything up, “Aren’t you sticking around to watch the show?”  You shook your head. “Why don’t you stick around and I’ll take you out after for a late dinner. As an apology for this being a bust for you.” You were sure that the way he smiled and how his eyes were so clear made it easy for him to pick up chicks but you weren’t going to be one of them.

“I had a long day. I’m not going out with you.” You zipped up your bag ready to leave

“Listen, Y/N, just stay until we go on. Maybe I can talk to someone and you can get paid for coming out.” You did need the money. So reluctantly you stayed.

9:57PM You shouldn’t have stayed. Nikki had seemed to think you telling him you were not going out with him was a maybe you’d go out with him.

It had been an hour of him sitting on the couch getting to know you, asking questions and being nice to you. Men weren’t nice to you just for the sake of being nice, they were born without the concept of human decency.

But he had also talked to their manager, pointing at you and saying stuff you didn’t get to hear. Now you were stuck in a weird limbo wondering if you were going to get paid.

11:15pm The band rushed on stage and you were pulled aside by the manager. He handed you and envelope that you knew contained cash.

“The boys are going to have a few California gigs. If you can stick it out for a couple weeks I’ll consider hiring you for the tour. I’ll pay you $100 bucks a gig and you need to bring your own supplies to start but if you go on tour you’ll get a contract.” He said. You agreed and he handed you a piece of paper with four dates, the upcoming week, times, and his phone number to call if you couldn’t make it. There was also a chicken scratch handwriting with the name Nikki and a phone number

You were stunned when he walked away. You not only got paid but you have jobs lined up to make even more. It was a dream.

Looking up, you moved towards the stage watching the bassist move around the stage. He was high energy, loving what he was doing. There was this presence about him that drew you in. If you did get the tour position that would be trouble.

11:59PM You had finished packing up and we’re heading out of the venue to head home. You were ready for your bed and a few hours of sleep. The guys were playing tomorrow and you wanted to not be having a bad day.

Trying to sneak out, you almost jumped back when four sweaty men came barreling into the room. Your heart instantly went to your throat seeing Nikki. His smile dancing across his lips, hey black hair stuck to his forehead just oozing self confidence and sex appeal.

“You’re leaving so soon?” You just nodded at his question, wondering if it would be considered rude to tuck his hair out of his face. “Did you call a taxi or need a ride? There’s a lot of unsafe riff raff out this late.” He warned and you almost thought he sounded concerned.

“I’m a grown woman. I can walk myself home. It’s only like 15 minutes from here.” His eyebrow raised as he wiped the sweat off his face with a towel.

“I’ll give you a ride.”

“No you won’t.” You shoe back, “I don’t know you and I don’t leave with strangers I’ve only known for one day.” You responded. It was practical to have rules to keep you from getting hurt.

“Well, Y/N, we’ve known each other for two days now since it’s past midnight.” He was so calm saying this to you, “And I’m trying to cut back on drinking so if they see me leave with you I won’t be harassed so you’ll really be doing me the favor.” Thinking about what he said, your tongue licked your top lip nervously. The way his eyes followed this motion gave you your answer.

“Thank you for the offer. I’m going to say goodbye to my roommate. I’ll see you in 20 minutes outside?” You gave him a smile and  saw the way he was melting under your touch as you moved away from him.

You moved over to your friend letting her know you were leaving and you’d see her at home.

12:22 AM Adjusting the bag over your shoulder you weaved through the crowds pouring in and out of all the clubs. No one ever really bothered you walking home. It was just the cat calling and guys thinking that they had a right to run their mouths

“Y/N.” You frowned hearing your name. The roar of a motorcycle speeding up had your eyes looking out on the street.

Oh Shit. There was Nikki, looking at you with a line where his smile had been, his kind eyes looking annoyed at you. You had left him after saying you’d let him take you home but he was too pushy.

“Get on.” the steely tone of his voice made you stop what you were doing, thinking of what to do next. People were looking at the pair of you, some probably recognizing Nikki from his band. You rolled your eyes, stepping forward.

“Listen to me, I’m not getting on. I don’t know you.” His look softened and it was like for the first time he understood what the issue was.

“I just want to make sure that you make it home safe. I know you don’t want anything happening to you. It would feel like my responsibility if you went missing after doing the band's makeup.” you rolled your eyes. Eyeing him and the bike. It had been a long day and it was onlya  five minute drive. What was the worst that could happen?

1:02AM The worst thing that could happen was happening.

When you got on the back of Nikki’s Harley he had asked where you lived. As he drove, you wrapped around his back you realized for the first time of the night you were smiling a genuine wife smile.

Watching the lights of the Strip and the hustle and bustle fly by when wrapped around his warm body, the noie drowned out by the roar of the bike was nice. It felt good. So when you pulled up on your street and he asked if you wanted to drive around more you didn't say no like you should have.

Weaving around the empty highways with just the pair of you was nice. There was no conversations but it felt like you two were getting to know each other on another level.

3:55AM Nikki pulled the bike into a donut shop on the side of the highway. The smell of fresh baked pastries and coffee brewing awakening you much like the wind whipping your face had been keeping you awake but it had been almost twenty four hours awake.

The pair of your ordered black coffee and a donut, sitting on stools at the counter and eating in a comfortable silence.

“Are you mad at me?” He didn’t have a cheeky grin on his face like you had expected but he was serious. “I know you said you wouldn’t go out with me but it just seemed like you were having a bad day and I have a hero complex.” you snorted when he said this. Surprised he admitted that he had a heroes complex.

“I’m not mad. I got on the back of your bike and stayed out.” you thought for a second, “I think I needed it. I always follow my rules and never break them. I think sometimes I need a break from the rules I create.” you said all this with your heart beating wondering what the hell you were doing with this guy in the middle of nowhere.

5:41AM Nikki had wrapped his leather jacket around you, both your boots abandoned by the motorcycle as you sat with toes in the sand watching the sun rise over the Pacific. You hadn't even seen the sun rising over the ocean before so you were wrapped up in the orange and golds of the sky, how the inky black of the water came alive into blue and purple hues with the light.

It was beautiful.

It felt like something was washing over you as you watchined it. Something was changing as you watched the sun start a new day. A new day that you had this feeling in your bones was going to be a good day.

Wiping a tear away, you took a deep breath remembering that you had moved here to make your dreams come true and for the first time it felt like it was going to happen.

A hand on your back reminded you that you weren’t alone. His olive eyes looking at you, concerned. You wiped a tear away trying to laugh it off.

“I never saw the sunrise over the ocean. It’s beautiful,” It was at that moment, wrapped up in the beauty of everything that you realized that he was going to kiss you. The way his hand was against your check, wiping the tears away.

But you surprised both of you leaning forward to push your lips against his. Making the first move. You were breaking all of your rules for him but it felt good and you could tell you would be breaking more rules with him

6:00AM It was going to be a good day.

[woahitslucyylu]

Tip.

credit to @nerd4music​ for the GIF. 

Author’s Notes: Frands. This is filth. Pack a pair of panties and read it twice! Love you, sleazies! xo

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The clubhouse buzzed with life - smoke billowing from blunts and cigarettes as pool balls clicked together and heavy beats vibrated through the house. 

“Ante up, motherfucker.” Angel mumbled through his tight lips as he pulled hard on a blunt. He squinted at the worn playing cards in his hand as he watched his brothers place their bets. Despite the noise, the vibration of a cellphone rolled through the table as cards were shifted in play. 

“Hermano.” It’s you.” Coco jerked his head towards the bright screen - initials and a sweat drops emoji revealing the caller. Angel crushed the blunt in the ashtray as he stood, “Night, brothers.” 

Angel stood in the cool night air as he watched his phone ring until your name faded and the screen dulled. He held his breath, exhaling as the phone brightened - your pattern consistent - a call, a text, and if Angel held out long enough, a picture and a video to remind him what was waiting just for him. 

Daddy. 

One word. 

He read it in your voice. His bulge hardened at the thought of you - he took a long drag of a fresh cigarette, the nicotine numbing the edge. He shouldn’t indulge you. He already spoiled you beyond what he had ever done for any of his other arrangements. Another wave of nicotine brought a wave of dominance - he should punish you. Edge you until you cry and leave. He’s capable of worse, but he has a soft spot for you. 

The vibration buzzed in the quiet night - the yard clearing out slowly. Angel rubbed the cigarette in the sand - the toe of his boot leaving stamps under his weight. 

“Goddamn.” His shock audible as he stared at his screen. Your knees were pulled to your chest - your breasts pushed under the pressure, but the aerial view of your glistening pussy made his heart drop. 

Be there in ten. 

The Harley rumbled to life under Angel as he pulled out of the scrap yard - dust blowing in his wake as he sped onto the street. 

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Angel took the stairs two at a time as he thundered up the narrow stairs behind the carnerica. 

When Felipe rented out the apartment above the shop, Angel was indifferent, but when your toilet flooded the bathroom and he met you frantic and wrapped in a towel - he suddenly became hyper aware of the honey living above the shop. 

He knocked sharply as he rocked back and forth on his feet. He heard the locks twist and drop. He had installed two more locks after you had called him tucked in the bathtub, whispering about boogeymen and bumps in the night. 

You opened the door slowly - your body clad in a short silk nightgown, “Hey.” Your voice was breathless as you raked your eyes over his hulking frame. You felt flush as he raised his eyebrows, “Are you done, mami?” He sauntered towards you - eyeing you like prey, licking his lips as his eyes focused on your thighs - soft under the laced edges of the gown. 

The predatory gaze left your insides fluttering as he pushed you into the couch. His close proximity left you panting as he folded your legs - pushing her knees into your chest - recreating the picture you had sent him so bravely. 

“There she is. Did she miss me?” A single finger slid over the glistening mound - your breath catching as you wiggled under his tight grasp. “Ah, keep that same energy you had when you asked for Daddy to come.” He pulled your knees apart - lewdly spitting on your slit as he sank further to his knees - “Your pussy is so pretty. Did I ever tell you that?” His eyes, half-hooded, stared at you as you laid still - paralyzed  with his boldness. 

“Ah!” The smack was sharp against your thigh and you hissed in shock. “What do you say?” Angel slid one finger between your wet folds, curling the tip across your velvet walls. 

“Thank you, Daddy.” You stared down as he slid another finger into your heat - your pussy clenching as his thick fingers pushed into you. The cool metal of his rings burnt your sorching core as he scissored his fingers inside you - your whine was stretched as his free hand plamed your breasts, massaging you roughly. 

“I knew she missed me.” He watched his fingers slide in and out of you - covered in stickiness as you wiggled your hips. Your knees relaxed, going slack, as his thumb pressed against your throbbing clit - your muscles weakening at his touch. 

“Ah!” Your thigh stung - the harsh slap making your leg jiggle as he stilled his fingers inside of you. “Pick ‘em up.” His request punctuated by a flex of his wrist - his fingers stretching you. Your hands grabbed your thighs weakly - your grip weakened by the euphoric feeling rushing through your body. 

“I said hold your legs, mami.” His heavy hand slid over your throat as his fingers began to move inside of you once again. The tightness of his grip and the feeling of being full left you rolling your hips against his fingers as you mumbled his name. 

“Already, querida?” Angel mocked as he licked his fingers - his gaze burning into your sated form. “How many more can I take? One, two, three?” His words tumbled onto your skin as he pushed the gown up - palming your breast as he took a waiting nipple in his mouth. His tongue swirled the bud into a harden peak as your back arched, pushing your chest into his mouth. “There you go. I knew you would come back.” He pulled back - draping his kutt over the coffee table and started to undress as you watched him - eyes heavy from lust. 

You sighed heavily when Angel dropped his shirt. He was gorgeous. Tall, chiseled, and he worshiped in the temple of you - using every gift to bring your body to pleasure time and time again. Somewhere between him teaching you how to squirt and the first time you spent the night together, you had fallen hard and fast and you couldn’t stop yourself from sinking into Angel. 

“It’s so beautiful.” Your compliment was genuine as your fingers traced the smooth skin of his penis. Every part of Angel was exquisite and his dick was no exception - heavy, thick, and slightly curved - your pussy clenched at the thought of him ruining you. 

Angel lit a blunt as he stood above you, “Earn it. Show me you deserve this dick.” The smoke billowed over you as you spit on him - your hand sliding over each vein as you flattened your tongue against his tip. 

“Damn, bitch. Do it just like that.” He inhaled again as he watched your cheeks hollow and your throat fill with him. “Fuck, swallow my shit.” The words were choked out as the smoke slipped past his pursed lips. Your throat burned from the stretch as you bobbed back and forth. Saliva dripped from your mouth as Angel thrusted into your throat, “Your mouth is almost as good as your pussy. Stand up.” Angel snuffed the blunt in the ashtray as he turned you - your back pressed into his tall frame. 

His mouth left wet, hot kisses on your neck as you rubbed against him - feeling him against your bare ass. “Get down.” He pushed his pelvis into you - sinking your knees into the couch - your back arched before him. 

You bounced your ass in front of him - rolling your hips as you glanced over your shoulder, finding Angel staring intently at your jiggling cheeks. His hands pressed into your plump ass - his fingertips pinching your skin as he spread you lewdly. He slid himself against your swollen folds - his cock glistening with you. The feel of his tip against your clit made you rock back - seeking that filled feeling. 

“Sit back.” He pushed forward. As his tip slid past your lips, you sighed - even after weeks, the stretch left you whiny as he stilled inside of you. “Go all the way to the tip.” Angel commanded as you rocked back and forth - gripping the couch cushion as you brought yourself to his tip each time. 

“All the way to the tip.” His words were strangled as his eyes stayed glued to where your bodies were connected - your pussy gripping him as you pushed against his hips. The burn in your belly felt familiar as you sped up, your ass bouncing against him as you chased your orgasm. 

“I said all the way to the tip.” His hand landed sharp against your thigh, stilling your ride, as you slid all the way to the tip of his dick. “I don’t care how good it feels. Do what Daddy says.” Angel’s hand wrapped through your hair - pulling the strands with his ringed fingers. “When I said the tip, that’s what I fucking meant.” The way he held your body left you defenseless to his assault as he shallowly thrusted - pulling his dick back and forth from your wet heat. 

Your breathing became erratic as Angel’s torturous strokes left your pussy dripping, “Please, Daddy. You feel so good. Please let me come.” You bent back, leaning into him, as he pushed into you - each thrust touching that sensitive spot. His mouth found your exposed neck - hot kisses falling against your glistening skin as you lazed against. The pad of his thumb pressed against your clit and you cried - tears swelling your eyes as you fell forward and arched - begging for him to ruin you. 

“There you go, mama, Give it to me.” Angel’s smirk was heard in his voice as you cried, gushing against him - a flood running down your thigh, “Thank you, daddy.” It was a mumble as you collapsed into the cushion - your body weak against his thrusts. 

“You welcome, bitch.” His hands held your hips in a bruising grip as he slipped in and out of your swollen lips - your cream covering his dick as his hands pulled at your breasts - pinching your nipples as he came inside you. 

Whimpers escaped your lips as he eased out of you - the sight of him leaking out of you sending stars across his eyes. You slid onto the couch - curling your legs into you as your eyes fluttered. Exhaustion running over you as Angel ran down your legs. 

Angel loved you the most after he fucked you. Your skin radiant, your features soft, and eyes heavy with love for him. 

“I got you, querida.” The humor in his voice is not completely lost in your hazy state. He padded down the hall, returning with a warm cloth. His touch was gentle - a contrast to the tight holds and smacks from minutes ago. Pulling on his boxers, he bent to pick you up - your face instantly nuzzling his neck - addicted to his unique form of aftercare. 

“Scoot your sleepy ass over.” Angel hovered over your body as you scooted - making room for his hulking frame. “Will you order food?” You melted into his frame, “I’m hungry.” A yawn escaped as you let your body relax. “Take your ass to sleep. Daddy will take care of you.” A soft smack to your ass brought a sleepy smile to your face. 

[archonanqi]

fragile as dust / 8 - the eleventh

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ch 8 | the eleventh

The rest of the day you spend running your fingers across the rows and rows of bound leather, taking inventory of all the words and knowledge and stories that were now at your fingertips — scurrying between the library and your room, arms full of books that caught your eye. 

Zhongli watched you from his seat in the living room each time you passed, offering comments on various books that you had picked out. He seemed especially amused each time you ran past with a book regaling a legend of the Lord of Geo, though you couldn’t think of a reason why. By the time the sun had set, every surface of your room had been touched by a book or two. 

You couldn’t wait to get started, already knew which ones you wanted to read first — there was one that promised the thrilling tale of Rex Lapis’ fight against the Beast of Nian that you were itching to devour. But before anything else, there was something you had to do, something you’d been planning as soon as you’d seen the “The Fine Art of Liyue Cuisine” title on the bookshelves. 

Zhongli had been kind — beyond that, really — about your situation, but you hadn’t forgotten that you were meant to be here for his convenience. You had done nothing but cause him trouble so far, and it was your duty to make up for the expenses you’d cost him. 

(Though really, and though you would never admit it, you couldn’t deny that on some very faint level, you wanted to hear praise, your name, anything come out in that rich, deep voice of his.)

So the next time Zhongli took his walk at Yujing Terrace, you reluctantly and politely declined his invitation. Minutes after his departure, you snuck out of the door, running as fast as you could towards the northern harbor. The recipe for the pen’cai stew had called for fish, but, as you grabbed handfuls of squid from the nearest unattended stall, you decided that seafood would have to do. Seafood was something that refined nobles like Zhongli ate, after all.

The tentacles felt disgusting in your pocket the entire way home, but it was fine. You could bear it for Zhongli. You couldn’t wait to imagine his surprise and delight.

Still, how odd that of all the ingredients, seafood was the only one you couldn’t find in Zhongli’s well-stocked refrigerator! 

When you got home, you breathed a sigh of relief that Zhongli had not come home yet; you didn’t know what you would have said if he had caught you with a pocket full of squid. After changing, you cracked the recipe book open, staring at it. You’d chosen this recipe because its description had stated “ no refinement is needed for this dish ”, but still, some of these terms flew right over your head. What the fuck was a “julienne”?

Zhongli had used the stove several times, mostly to heat up leftovers from the abysmal amount of food he frequently bought, and it hadn’t seemed too hard at all for him. You would learn, just as you always did. 

---

By the time Zhongli returned home, smoke was still billowing from the windows. 

---

It was all a bit of a haze for you. The oil had started producing bright sparks (in your defense, how were you supposed to make sense of “ Heat Oil Until Hot ”??), and you knew enough about cooking at least to know that that wasn’t good. 

You also thought you knew enough about cooking to know that embers had to be put out by water. The resulting bang had sent you rolling to the floor, and when you’d gotten back up, the curtains by the stove were ablaze

When Zhongli found you, you were frozen in fear — you had backup plans for if the food burnt, but this… this went a little past that. 

From behind you, you heard a loud whoosh, felt the force of the earth knock into you. The room became enveloped briefly in a golden glow, and as you watched, the fire faded into embers, then smoke. A single glowing, red gem clattered to the ground, before dissipating with a loud hiss.

“H-how?” Was the first word out of your lips. 

“When Geo reacts with—“ Zhongli shook his head, cutting his explanation short for the first time you’d heard, “never mind that. Are you alright? Can you move?”

You let him lead you outside, numbly, silently. Finally, out in the fresh morning air, he peered down at you. You searched his face for anger, but found only mild curiosity. “Now,” Zhongli said, sitting on the grass by your side, ”would you like to tell me what happened in there?”

The weight of what you’d done hit you like an angry boar. Treacherous tears gathering behind your eyes, you whispered “I’m so sorry,” barely able to get the apologies out fast enough. “I— I thought I would surprise you with breakfast, but— but the oil and the water...“ You trailed off when he raised his hand to cover his mouth — out of anger? No, there was a smile on his face. A smile!

“My my,” he mused, the smallest of smiles playing on his face. “Truly, you are a child of Liyue. Always trying new things, rushing in headstrong.” Zhongli shook his head wistfully. “It reminds me of myself, many years ago.”

“You?” You asked in disbelief, feeling your eyes widen. You hadn’t once seen him with so much a button out of place on his intricate coat; weren’t convinced he hadn’t come out of the womb drinking pu’er tea and writing poetry. “ You’ve set things on fire before, Mr. Zhongli?”

“More times than I can count,” his smile widened, and you felt like you had learned a secret of the Gods themselves. “But as I learned, so must you: you can always ask for help, Hansi.”

Suddenly, it didn’t feel like he was talking about cooking anymore. As always, his words were so slow, so deliberate that you scoured them for a hidden meaning. If you didn’t know better, you would be deathly sure that he knew of your difficulties with the Vision. And right now, sitting on the grass next to you after you had almost burned down his home, Zhongli had never felt more approachable. Maybe you could tell him, after all.

Starting a fire was one thing , you chided yourself. Lying about possessing the power of one of the Seven Archons is another.

“I will keep that in mind, Mr. Zhongli.” You said, instead, bowing your head a little. “Thank you for… not being mad.”

“It is I who should be thanking you for your thoughtfulness. And what is it that you were trying to cook for me, my dear?”

You almost jumped at that, feeling warm color blossoming within your cheeks. He probably called everyone that — he was so traditional, after all. “Seafood stew, Mr. Zhongli.” 

Finally, to your utter confusion, Zhongli’s smile bloomed into a rich laugh. “Then I’m very sorry I missed it,” he chuckled. “Are culinary skills something you would like to learn, Hansi?” 

“Yes,” you said, frustration and indignance culminating into determination. There wasn’t one thing you hadn’t been able to learn when you’d put your heart to it — reading, stealing, surviving. Well, except... “Please, teach me.”

“You deserve a far better teacher than I,” Zhongli said, standing up and dusting his coat off, before offering you his hand. “Let’s pay Wanmin Restaurant a visit, shall we?” Then, wrinkling his nose, “though perhaps... After we rid the house of any more fire hazards.”

---

At the counter of Wanmin Restaurant was a man you had never seen before, though his resemblance to Xiangling was striking. He perked up immediately upon seeing you and Zhongli approach.

“Mr. Zhongli!” He waved frantically. “Thank you for the medicine! My knee feels better already.”

“I’m glad, Chef Mao. I’ve heard that Bubu Pharmacy’s herbal cures are nothing short of divine miracles,” Zhongli said. “Though I hear from Xiangling that you’ve been gathering herbs near Jueyun Karst? You must know that it is extremely dangerous for humans to enter.”

“Of course, of course!” Chef Mao laughed good-naturedly. “You don’t have to warn me twice. I make sure to give that place a good berth —  I don’t have enough lives to go around meeting any Adepti. Now, what brings you here today? Xiangling or I will cook anything you’re in the mood for.”

Zhongli shook his head gently. “I’ll have to take you up on that offer some other time. Today, I was hoping to ask Xiangling for some culinary tutelage. This young lady here is looking to learn how to cook.”

“Oh!” Chef Mao peered at you, as though he had just noticed you. Of course, it hadn’t helped that you were trying to hide behind Zhongli the whole time. He turned around and yelled into the kitchen, “XIANGLING! COME HERE, MR. ZHONGLI AND HIS—“ 

A pause, as he glanced between you and Zhongli, trying to ascertain your relationship.

“Friend,” Zhongli supplied. You hated that your heart skipped a beat.

“—FRIEND ARE HERE TO SEE YOU!”

Almost immediately, Xiangling’s head popped out from behind the window, waving and beaming dazzlingly. As Zhongli explained the situation to her, you once again wondered where she was storing her endless cheer. Perhaps in her hairbuns. 

“I hope that it is not too much trouble,” Zhongli concluded, crossing his arms over his chest and stepping aside. You wanted to scream at the thought that he knew you’d been trying to hide behind him.

“Nonsense!” Chef Mao slapped his hands together, and you were beginning to see where Xiangling got her enthusiasm from. “If not for you getting Wanmin Restaurant this spot on Chihu Rock, why, Rex Lapis would never have found us and written such flattering poetry about our food. Then where would we be? No favor is too big for you, my friend, let alone something so trivial as this.” 

You glanced up at Zhongli, but his expression did not change. Just exactly how much influence did Zhongli have over the city? 

Just who was he? 

“Would Miss Hansi want to work as my apprentice for a few weeks?” Xiangling asked, thoughtfully. “With the winter coming up soon, we’re going to need a lot of ingredients, so I could use an extra hand. We can’t pay very much, maybe 1,000 Mora a week, but I’ll keep you nice and full, I promise!”

A thousand Mora — that was more than you had ever had at once in your life. You jumped to say yes, but stopped yourself just in time. It wasn’t up to you. For all Zhongli’s benevolence, what nobleman would want a servant (is that what you even were?) that they'd paid for gone all day? 

You looked to Zhongli for his answer. And when he only waited patiently, you prompted, “may I accept this offer, Mr. Zhongli?”

“You are free to do as you please, Hansi.” Zhongli said, and the surprise didn’t sting as much as it used to. “I think it would be a great opportunity.”

You had never been more sure of the following “yes!” that you almost shouted at Xiangling.

Chef Mao laughed. “We’ll see how much of that enthusiasm you can keep when Xiangling starts working you to the bone!” He waved at Zhongli. “Xiangling and I will show her around the restaurant. You should get back to your work, Mr. Zhongli — you must be a very busy man.”

Zhongli raised a brow, but did not comment further. “Will you be able to find your way back home, Hansi?”

After getting your affirmation, Zhongli nodded and walked away. You would have watched him leave, if you could, studying every detail on the back of his coat — but Xiangling grabbed your hand.

“Come on!” She was almost vibrating from excitement, and you couldn’t help but match her grin with your own. “There’s SO much I need to show you!”

---

By the time Xiangling released you from your duties for the day (and you had learned more words than you thought existed), the city had grown dark.

It had been so exciting, the prospect of having a real, actual job that you didn’t have much else on your mind. And so your first mistake, you realized too late, was trying to find the same shortcuts that Zhongli had used to get home. The alleyways at night were strangers to you  — and there was good reason for it.

You thought it was your imagination at first, but it became more apparent with every crawling second: there was another pair of footsteps that echoed each of your own. You quickened your pace, noticing the echo match yours almost perfectly. As you turned down deeper between the buildings, you forced your foot to stop halfway to the ground.

The echoing footstep clacked against the cobblestone. 

There was a flurry of movement behind you, your pursuer realizing that their cover had been blown. The figure lunged at you, and you ducked at the last second— you were used to bigger men throwing their bodies at you, had long since learned how to use their weight against them. With all your strength, you aimed a kick at the man’s groin—

Only for him to catch your ankle with one of his gloved hands, yanking you off your feet, and throwing you against the wall. The impact knocks all the air from your lungs. You scrambled to get back to your feet, coughing. Instinctively, you reached for your chest, where your Vision once was. It wasn’t there. Of course. And even if it was, what good would it be?

“Feisty,” the man remarked, leaning in to peer at you. In the dim moonlight, you could see a strange red mask hanging his cheek, stark against his auburn hair. At his hip, a Vision glowed royal blue, with a frame that you had never seen before. “What on Teyvat has Zhongli gotten himself into?”

---

“Who are you?” You snapped. The man kept his careful distance from you, but you were sure that he would be able to catch you in seconds if you ran. The way he had moved to meet your blow was practiced, skilled, even. It seemed that you had misjudged his intentions — he was not some drunken man seeking pleasure. “Are you from Bawang ?”

“Ba—what?” The man shook his head, clutching his heart in a dramatic show of dismay. “I’m hurt. Didn’t Mr. Zhongli not tell you about me? Not even a passing mention?”

Eyeing him carefully, you racked your brains. Was he a friend of Zhongli’s? Surely no associate of Zhongli would corner you in an alley at night and push you over... Right? You were realizing how little (absolutely nothing, to be exact), you knew about Zhongli’s life. 

 “Was the ‘who are you?’ not enough of a clue?”

The man grinned wickedly in the night, eyes glinting at your mockery. “What a tongue you have on you. Didn’t know that was Zhongli’s type.” He offered his hand to you. “I’m Tartaglia, codename Childe. Pleased to meet you.”

You stared at his hand like you would a can of live worms. “The one from the Fatui.”

The message received, he let his hand fall back to his side. “So he has talked about me. And here I was, thinking that he saw me as just a puppet.” He mused. You had no clue what he was talking about, but it was immediately clear that the man was dangerous. 

“Are you here to collect his debt? I don’t have any money.” 

“Debt?” Tartaglia laughed. “No, there’s no debt . Mr. Zhongli has unlimited access to the Northland Bank’s funds. Yeah,” he clarified, mistaking your shock for confusion. “Turns out, you need to read the fine print when it comes to making deals with the guy.”

“Then what do you want from me?” 

“Oh, come now,” he raised his palms in a placating manner, “don’t be so harsh. I’m only here to investigate. Zhongli has been buying enough food for a small army, and while it’s not entirely unusual of him, he also made a large payment to a certain company... that let’s just say even the Fatui won’t touch with a six-foot pole.” Tartaglia swept his glance over you from head to toe. “But you already know that, don’t you?”

You stayed silent, wishing to the Archons that looks could kill.

“I don’t know why he… acquired you, but believe me, he’s always got some kind of plan going on in that head of his.” Tartaglia sighed. “Anyway, where’s your Vision? 

You stiffened. “Vision?” You scoffed. The false disbelief came easily, naturally. “You think the Archons would give someone so pathetic a Vision?” 

“You can cut the crap. I saw the way you reached for it there. I’ve seen that look way too many times. Vision-holders who get too dependent, who think that having one makes them invincible.” Tartaglia’s lip curled. “A Vision wouldn’t have saved you from me, girlie. But someone as weak as you should at least be carrying it around.”

Every moment of the day, you thought of it, of how all your problems would be solved if — when — you mastered the power of the Archons. The thought that it wouldn’t, that knowing how to use a Vision wouldn’t make you invincible to the world, was devastating.

Before you, Tartaglia’s eyes were the color of the ocean during monsoon seasons, deep, roiling, devastating. You couldn’t seem to bring yourself to lie again, so you lowered your head.

“That’s what I thought. What element?”

“Geo,” you said quietly. The only thing you could do here was keep him talking, long enough until you could find a chance to escape. From what you could tell, he didn’t seem to be on too-friendly terms with Zhongli. Perhaps he wouldn’t tell him, after all. 

“Of course.” He nodded, as though there was no other answer.

“What do you mean, of course?” 

“ What I mean is —“ Tartaglia peered at you, raising a single brow. “Hmm. What does Zhongli think of your Vision?”

You bit your lip to stop from responding. This was dangerous territory. As the seconds dragged on in silence, you watched a glimmer of glee creep into Tartaglia’s eyes. “Oh! Oh my Archon. You haven’t told him!” The Fatui Harbinger threw back his head and laughed with abandon. “Oh, that’s great! This is beautiful!”

You waited a good half minute for Tartaglia to finally wipe all the tears from his cheeks. “Are you done?” You’d been slowly edging towards the exit of the alley, keeping your eyes trained on the Fatui. As long as you could get to Wanmin Restaurant you would be safe... but no. You couldn’t drag Xiangling and Chef Mao into this. You still didn’t understand half the things Tartaglia had said, but you knew that the Fatui’s attention wasn’t something you wanted, no matter who you were.

“Yes, yes,” Tartaglia huffed, fanning himself dramatically.

“What’s so funny?”

“My contract ,” he almost spat the word, “mandates that I stay silent about that one, sorry.  But don’t worry, I’ll keep your little secret. I’d love to see the look on your face when... Anyway. I’m here to give you an offer.”

“Next time, try offering over lunch or something,” you didn’t know where you found the courage to snap, “instead of in an alley.” 

“Sorry, sorry,” Tartaglia threw his hands up, somewhat apologetically. “It’s been so hard to catch you alone.” Had he been watching you and Zhongli? You grimaced. “But anyway. How would you like… all the Mora you could ever need? Anything you want to buy, eat or wear, yours, just like that.” He snapped his fingers. 

“…And what do you want from me?”

“Information,” he replied, “about Zhongli. How to fight him, really, but also anything else he—“ 

At this point, you were beginning to feel inclined to believe that the man was simply missing half his marbles. Finally feeling like you had put enough distance between him and yourself, you turned and ran — for a whole two seconds, when a strong force yanked you backwards. 

“Hey now, hasn’t Mr. Zhongli taught you anything about manners?” He tutted as you flailed in his grip, “I wasn’t done talking— whoa!”

He ducked, barely avoiding a projectile that whizzed past his cheek, so close that you could hear it whistle through the air. You peer at where it landed, firmly embedded into the brick wall. 

It was a golden spear that glowed dimly in the light. Its design was immaculate, intricate, beautiful , you thought numbly, as you watched it fade before your eyes. 

“Well then,” Tartaglia said tightly, “never mind  her manners. It’s not like you to get so worked up, Mr. Zhongli.”

You snapped your head towards the entrance of the alleyway. You’d recognize the silhouette anywhere, but in that moment, with the same spear gripped in his hand and his features edged silver under the moonlight, eyes glowing a ravenous gold, Zhongli looked particularly divine.

“If I were worked up , Childe, I would not have missed,” Zhongli said, twirling the spear once before setting the pole against the cobblestone. The way he moved -- natural, relaxed, as though the polearm seemed like an extension of his body. There was no anger in his voice, but you felt a slight tremor in the ground under your feet and, despite your situation, a jolt of excitement at the thought of seeing Zhongli fight, seeing a Geo Vision in use. 

“Oho?” Childe let go of your sleeve, crouching down low as glowing blue energy gathered in his hands. “Sure sounds like you’re asking for a fight. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this!” 

Zhongli regarded him coolly for a moment. “Look around you. Is this really where you want to fight me, Childe?” He raised his head, and you and Tartaglia followed his gaze to a window. Behind the glass, you could make out a young girl’s face as she stared wide-eyed down at the scene below. 

To your surprise, the Fatui paused. You hadn’t marked him down as the type to worry about collateral damage. Finally, he shifted back into a more relaxed stance, waving his fingers clean of Hydro. “You know me a little too well, Mr. Zhongli,” he smiled, all hostility seemingly forgotten. You may have misjudged his empathy, but you certainly hadn’t imagined his unhinged nature. 

“What business do you have with Hansi?” Zhongli asked.

“That’s our little secret. Well, I’ll leave you two to… whatever it is you do.” He winked. “Remember, you still owe me a dinner sometime, Mr. Zhongli.”

“Certainly,” Zhongli said, lowering his hand and letting his spear disintegrate from between his fingers. “Though I must warn you, it will be the Northland Bank bearing the bill.” 

“Of course.” Childe chuckled one more time, as though he remembered something funny. “See you around, Hansi.”

---

On the way home, Zhongli was uncharacteristically quiet. As you entered the warmth of his — of your home, you tried to break the silence. “Thank you for saving me, Mr. Zhongli.”

Zhongli stayed quiet for a short while more, staring at you so intently it stung. “Forgive my silence,” he finally said. “When I couldn’t find you at Wanmin, I thought that you had been hurt or… that you had run away.”

Astonished, you didn’t really know what to say. Running away was a thought that had crossed your mind, but each time, the cons far outweighed the pros. You were more than familiar with what awaited you on the streets of Liyue. “I am not so stupid to be ignorant of what would happen to me if I did” There was a pregnant pause. “And besides, I have had no reason to, Mr. Zhongli. You have been more than kind to me.”

Zhongli smiled. Was it just your imagination, or were his meltingly gorgeous smiles coming more and more often? Trying not to let your thoughts wander, you blurted the first thing that came to mind. “That spear was beautiful.”

“Thank you,” he said. “It has served me well.”

“Do you really know how to use it?” There had been no weaponry in the house that you’d seen, but you believed him wholeheartedly.

“I am somewhat versed in its usage, yes.” 

“How long did it take you to learn how to fight?” You wondered, sincerely. 

“I have always known how to fight, for as long as I can remember.” Suddenly, his weathered hands made sense. With your notions of him growing up as a sheltered, rich noble shattered, you had never been more curious of his past. Had he been part of the Millelith? “Though, I have since come to learn that it was never true strength. Why do you ask, Hansi?”

You hesitated, nervously glancing away. Way to dig yourself a hole. “Just wondering.”

“Hansi, I gave you my word to keep you safe, to the best of my abilities. However, I fear that there may be times when I may not be by your side, such as tonight.” Zhongli seemed to think deeply about his next words. “Remember that if you want to learn how to fight, you just need to ask.” 

Tell him , a voice in your mind screamed. Tell him about the damned Vision.

As tempting as it was, you were indeed more than familiar with what awaited you on the streets of Liyue. You would not risk, even remotely, your position in Zhongli’s household.

“Thank you, Mr. Zhongli,” you mustered the warmest smile you could, as you stood up to retreat to your room. “I will keep that in mind.”

“That’s all I ask,” Zhongli exhaled deeply. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

[crab-in-a-pocket]

Greetings fellow wizard fucker👋 I am very glad to find someone else who appreciates mr. Magic man! I would also like to request some headcanons of wizard and a shy farmer, please! Cause I would much rather hang out in a tower doing spells rather than overwhelm myself trying to befriend an entire town. Thank you!

aw shit this is so cute. not as general as the wizard and the (shy) farmer chilling but more specific as to how they got into a relationship mwah. lowkey based on the romanceable rasmodius mod and always @iniro's wizard portrait mod. quite long so you can check it out under the cut!

the first time you met him, there was a sort of relaxing feeling to his place. sure, cold stone walls and all that wizard jazz, but he wasn't pushy or too nice or judgemental. he was just... there

you liked that feeling. he didn't expect anything from you and you didn't expect anything from him. and he was rather good at ending conversations without making you feel awkward.

making friends with the townsfolk is cool but it's weird making friends with them just one at a time— you couldn't handle that. you had to choose.

the first time you visit the wizard for no reason in particular is a rainy, rainy day. lightning lights up the dark clouds and the thunderclaps are so loud it threatens to tear the sky apart.

you wanted to show the wizard some things you had found in the mines. a tiny, warm orb of swirling golden light, and a tiny, icy ball of pitch black ink. and you made sure to leave before it rained but by the time you stood at his doorstep, you were already soaked to the bone.

you hesitate a little— it was always like this at the start— and then knock firmly. once, then twice.

he is shocked to see you standing there, dripling wet at his doorstep. but he ushers you in after a slightly suspicious squint, and when he offers you tea and you hold the little orbs out to him as if sharing marbles, he is so, so, surprised.

he shows you what the orbs do, teaches you little snippets of magic, and then it carries on like so. it becomes a routine, a steady habit you didn't wan't to break.

he eventually tells you to call him by his name. magnus, you say, letting it roll off your tongue, practicing it. magnus, magnus, magnus. i like your name.

his amused smile helps you say with more certainty.

you didn't really want to go to the flower dance. you had no one to dance with and you had chores to do. but attending community gatherings is the first step to forging friendships, isn't it?

your hellos are weak and half-hearted. you finally crack— you don't want to be here ans you're desperately looking for a way out without getting spotted (bridge? pierre. river? willy, pam, leah, and elliott.)

eyeing a crack through the fences, you duck and slip past it, pushung past thick brambles and sidling past trees ubtil you reach what appears to be a steep sort of natural staircase. you climb it and, much to your surprise, you see a familiar face.

you aren't supposed to be up here, the wizard tells you. neither are you, you reply.

did you ask anyone to dance?

laughing, you say, no, i don't think any of them would like to dance with me.

funnily enough, he smiles back (though with a different sort of emotion, you couldn't quite tell which) and says, you could be wrong. you could be a very good dance partner for all you know.

oh, then, would you like to dance with me? you rib, grinning at him now.

the expression on his face shifts and it becomes unreadable. you're hardly surprised when he says, i wouldn't know the steps.

it is his polite way of rejecting you. you're quite sure of that. smiling, you tell him, well, i wouldn't know them either.

sometimes, you just watch him while he works on enchantments and spells. it's nice, watching him work on his craft while you read about firemaking, something you've been working on for a while. you've made a few crops bloom early and even grew a fruit out of season, but you've never tried making fire, something made of raw emotion and passion and magic.

you need to let the energy burst from you, magnus says. then, you need to pull it back in just so. he sounds like a broken radio at this point, always repeating it.

like a lighter? you ask, as if you haven't asked it a thousand times before.

yes, just like that.

you try every emotion. you try when you're happy, when you're sad, when you're angry, when you're not feeling a single thing at all, and when you can feel every damned feeling in the world. it doesn't work.

my hand is broken, you grumble, clutching your cup of tea so fiercely your knuckles are white. or it could be my feelings. probably my feelings.

don't be silly. your hand can't possibly be broken, magnus scoffs, taking the seat across you and picking up his own cup of tea.

incredulously, you ask, you think my feelings are broken? seriously?

magnus shrugs. yes, maybe, i don't know. put down your tea cup and give me your hand.

you oblige and lean across the table, outstretching your arm. he takes your hand in his (you've always admired his hands, rather large and long-fingered but still elegant. you imagined them to be soft... you didn't think you'd be right.) and you're taken aback at the sudden flare of emotion rushing through you. not one you've never known, but one you didn't quite expect.

he flips your hand over and his thumb presses into your palm. he is so, so, so focused on your hand (is that dirt under your nails?) that he fails to see you struggling not to blush

he tells you to flatten your hand, as flat as it can go, then he says something surprising.

how about you try and think of someone you hate? think of burning their face into ash. his face colors a little but his smile is razor sharp. that's how i first did it.

you laugh at that, startled, then you realize he's being serious. you try, trying to see your ex's face hovering over your palm being burnt to a crisp. you try and try and try until you're blue in the face.

it's not working, you tell him angrily.

a pensive look falls across his face. magnus has a tendency to stick out his lower lip as if he was pouting when he thinks. you feel your anger ebbing away at the silly face he's making. your heart pounds harder than ever and you can hardly look at him, your cheeks flushing.

he is still holding onto your hand when a fire bursts into life, white hot. it cools to a pale shade of blue, flickering like a kitchen flame. it is as hot as the summer sun on your shoulders, so hot it could burn.

magnus yelps. so do you, and the fire dies. your hand is unmarred but, clearly, at magnus' hisses of pain, you've singed his fingers.

i'm sorry, i didn't mean to! you cry out, a worried look on your face. to your utter shock, he smiles.

what did you think of? he asks, a pleased smile on his lips. your flame was as blue as spirit fire.

i- i- i didn't think of anything, really. i'm not sure, you stutter out, avoiding his eyes. fuck. you're screwed. he's always been good at seeing lies and he didn't like any kind of them.

his frown tells you that he didn't not believe your weak excuse.

you avoid magnus for a while. you break your comforting routine and you thrust yourself into making friends with people in town. it helps just a little, lifting your spirits. one day, in the forest, you see leah asking for your help-- she wants to reach a fruit on a tree. you never looked in the direction of magnus' tower anymore. you hesitate for a moment, then you help leah, your gaze anywhere but on the tower.

try as you might, your gaze is on the tower. how could it not be, when what you are drawn to is its sharp little roof and the large telescope sticking out of it, and the ivy creeping up and down its stone brick walls? how could you not be drawn to it when it was a place you could almost call home?

i shouldn't be prying, leah says all of a sudden once you've let her down and you turn to walk away. but you used to visit the tower's occupant, didn't you? i just always saw you walking back and forth.

you stare at her for a moment, and then two. yes, i did, you finally reply. i'll visit soon. just... not now.

you are far too confused to go back. not yet. did you really like magnus that way? or was it a fluke, just a lonely, touch-starved person reaching for a body to hold on to, friendships be damned? you didn't want to fuck this up. you haven't made a proper fire in a week. you miss the surge of energy, of power, of emotion. you miss him.

pierre has taken to selling bouquets. bright, colorful flowers. they're for a special someone, he says to you when he catches you looking at them curiously. for heartfelt confessions, if i couldn't be any plainer.

you buy one and keep it in your house, in a vase with water to keep it alive. you wonder if it is worth the risk. you can see the tower's roof from the second floor of your house. you settle in with the bouquet at your right hand and a cup of tea in the left.

it has been an entire two weeks since you've last seen him. in fairness, it is nearing the end of fall and most of your heavy rumination has been during your farm chores as you work to keep in pace with your harvest to prepare for the incoming winter season.

you decide to tell him that you like him romantically. and if he doesn't care for you in that way, you will try and salvage your friendship to the best of your abilities. it is a foolhardy plan, as magnus would put it, but it is the best plan you have.

the last autumn rain is slowly falling and you pick up the pace, not wanting to get the bouquet dripping wet. your bag hangs at your side, filled to the brim with glittering balls of light and darkness.

when you finally stand at his dooratep, lightning lights up the dark clouds and the thunderclaps are so loud it threatens to tear the sky apart. you are soaked to the bone, but you have heated up your hand just enough to dry your clothes at a pat and touch.

you hesitate a little— just like at the start— and then knock firmly. once, then twice.

the door swings open and the surprise on magnus' face would have been comedic, if it were not for the circumstances. he stares at you, lamely carrying a bouquet upside down, dripping wet.

can i come in? you ask, surprised at the unwavering tone of your voice. unless you're busy. then i'll go.

magnus nods mutely (you're confused for a second there, and he steps aside to let you in before locking the door behind you. for a moment, you two just stand there silently, drowning in the awkward silence. then, he breaks it just as you do.

let me get some tea for you, you're dripping water on my floor, you might get sick—

i brought something for you, you weren't actually doing—

for a moment, everything is back as it was and you laugh and he chuckles at the predicament. then, you try and stomp off as much water as possible right at his door. you keep drying yourself with your heated hand and you remove your shoes and socks, marveling at the warmth of the floor. magnus disappeared to make tea— you follow after him, careful not to ruin the bouquet.

so, why are you here? he asks, his tone careful, once you seat yourself at his tea table. you've been gone a while. busy with the fall harvest?

yes, i was busy. but i was also avoiding you, you tell him honestly, and you can see him stiffen at that.

why? did i do something?

no, i did. i was confused and scared... i didn't want to lose my only friend, you know. it wasn't right for me to just up and leave for 2 weeks, though, i'm sorry.

he sits across you and hands you your cup of hot, steaming tea. what did you do?

i acted like a fool, you say, taking a sip to warm yourself. you feel your confidence waning. you have never been so straightforward in your life— what on earth is wrong with you? so you see, magnus, this is for you. you jerk your head in the direction of the bouquet on its side, flowers a little limp and raindrops on its many bright petals.

he looks confused. confused but appreciative. er, thank you for the bouquet. it's lovely. and he leaves it at that.

you stare at him, bewildered. then, you start to laugh. you... you don't know what it means, then? you move your tea cup of the saucer and you rip your bag open, fumbling for the balls of solar and void essence.

no, i'm afraid i don't, he replies, starting to sound a little annoyed and exasperated. care to enlighten me?

you put the solar and void essence on the saucer and push it towards him. you smile a little mournfully at the sudden surprise on his face and say, it means i like you, magnus. romantically.

the room falls silent. he looks up at you and you can hear him thinking and you can see the flush on his face as he stammers out a response, but you shake your head, i was thinking we could still be friends if you didn't like me back. but that’s not fair for either of us, is it? you’re right and you know it, but that doesn’t mean you don’t feel the hot shame prickling under your skin.

you turn to leave. i’m really sorry about this. i’m so sorry i had to ruin it.

no, no, don’t go. i didn’t know what the bouquet meant, really, i didn’t. i’m glad you were honest with me. look, i didn’t say i didn’t like you back that way. don’t go. please? he says all this in a rush and you freeze, trying to comprehend what he just said.

you... like me back? you ask, your voice suddenly meek.

i haven’t ‘liked’ anyone since i was a teenager, magnus says, mirth in his voice. but, yes, it could be just that.

a hand clasps your wrist and you turn around to look at him, his eyes shining with warmth and his cheeks a soft pink. are you still going? he asks, his brows knotting. you know he’s referring to the storm.

no. no, i think i can stay, you tell him, and you take your seat once more. to your utter surprise an amusement, you hear the scrape of his chair and find him sitting next instead of across you this time.

making friends becomes easier during the winter. you don’t have much to do, really, and so you split your time between the mines, fishing, the pub, and the tower.

you didn't really want to go to the flower dance. you had no one to dance with in particular and you had chores to do. but attending community gatherings is important, especially because you’re part of the said community.

you greet everyone cheerfully and they ask you about your farm. you’re grateful that they are too eager for the festivities to begin to make any more conversation aside from small talk. it is time to make your exit, you think

eyeing a crack through the fences, you duck and slip past it, pushing past thick brambles and sidling past trees until you reach what appears to be a steep sort of natural staircase. you climb it and, to your amusement, you see a familiar face.

you aren't supposed to be up here, magnus tells you. neither are you, you say cheerfully.

did you ask anyone to dance? he says, and you can hear the jesting undertone.

laughing, you say, no, i’d much rather dance with one person in particular.

he smiles back (though with a different sort of emotion, you still couldn't quite tell which, but you know it is something warm and sweet) and says, not that i would dance down there, but i think i’d rather dance with a very specific person, too.

oh, then, would you like to dance with me? you rib, grinning at him now.

the expression on his face shifts and he huffs out a laugh. you're hardly surprised when he says, i wouldn't know the steps.

you shrug, then reply, well, i could teach you. what do you say?

he blushes, but smiles in return. later, perhaps. when we are alone.

leaning towards magnus, you press a kiss to his lips, one he gladly returns.

[seraphanangelica]

Can I please have scenarios or headcanons on how bnha characters (any that you like) would handle dealing with a ghost with their s/o who totally believes in the supernatural? Thank you in advance

I absolutely love this idea! As a firm believer of the supernatural myself, there was absolutely no way I could delay this response. So here you go!

How They And Their S/O Would Deal With Ghosts

💥This guy has only seen or heard about ghosts and spirits from horror movies. That’s all he cares about them. If they’re not in a movie, they have no existence. Of course, every time he says something along those lines, you roll your eyes and laugh to yourself at his blatant lack of attention to the supernatural.

💥You’ve tried, many times to prove just how real they were. And every single time it would go like this:

💥”I’m telling you, Katsuki, I’ve had experiences with them. You just don’t think they’re real becuase you haven’t.”

💥”Your experiences are just things you don’t want to give logical explanations to, dumbass.”

💥His point is proved further when nothing happens. And nothing happened for days after the last time you two had the repetitive conversation.

💥One day, as Katsuki woke up before you, he got out of bed and proceeded to go about his completely non-paranormal life. After giving you a light kiss on your forehead, he went downstairs to start preparing breakfast.

💥He stopped mid-stair though, as he heard another pair of feet pattering down the stairs behind him at a much quicker and softer pace. At first he thought it was you that had gotten up earlier than usual to spend more time with him in the mornings. He turned around to greet you with a smirk, his face falling slightly when he saw no one around.

💥Paying it no mind, he finished descending the stairs, and continued into the kitchen.

💥In the middle of sautéing vegetables, Katsuki reached out to grab the bottle of olive oil that sat on the counter to his left. He froze mid reach as he saw the barstool behind him rotate as if someone were sitting there out of the corner of his eye.

💥”Oh hell, no.” He still refused to take into account anything you’ve said about the matter.

💥Twenty minutes later, you were downstairs and eating breakfast, in the barstool next to the one that moved. You watched in curiosity as Katsuki leaned against the counter in front of you, crimson eyes darting from the empty seat then to you, then back again.

💥You were concerned, to say the least. “Katsuki, are you alright? You’re acting weird. Come sit down.”

💥He only shook his head and took a deep breath, looking you in the eyes. “Tell me about everything you know about ghosts. Now.”

💥And so you did. You told him everything you’ve been trying to tell him since you’ve known each other. The only difference was that this time, he was actually listening as if it were real and not a story.

💥When you finished he shook his head. “Look, I still don’t believe in this ‘ghost’ stuff, but-“ crash!

💥You’re heads snapped over to the source of the sound, your eyes settling on the plate that used to be next to Katsuki. It was now shattered on the floor, the pieces spreading out farther than the counter span. You knew Katsuki was freaking out but concealing it on the outside.

💥You couldn’t help but smile at your husband as his eyes still focused on the broken dish. “Don’t belive me now? We both know that dish was no where near the edge.”

💀Dabi would be disbelieving, but open to conversation. People talk about anime, right? It’s not real but makes for great small talk. He’d also be stupid. Very, very stupid.

💀The day he walked into the League of Villain’s hideout with an Ouija board under his arm, you thought he’d finally lost his mind.

💀”Are you crazy? Do you know the kind of stuff that happens when you use one of those things? You don’t know what you’re letting in!” You tried to reason with him, even coming up with ways to dispose of it without his knowledge. Unfortunately for you, he knew what you were up to and hid it.

💀”Oh come on. It’s just a little fun,” he teased you one night when he bagan setting it up in the center of your shared room. “What’s the worst that happen?”

💀”Asking ‘is anybody there’ is the stupidest thing you can do becuase thats inviting anything to come into the space. Secondly, you don’t know how to protect yourself against that kind of thing. The worst that can happen is possession, Dabi.” You scolded, leaning against the wall farthest from the board.

💀”Relax, Doll. I have someone in mind, actually. He didn’t really matter much, but I picked this from his wallet,” he reached into his pocket and tossed an ID card in your general direction. “See? Perfectly fine.”

💀It was not perfectly fine. You reluctantly joined him in the game, placing your fingers on the planchette, cringing with every subtle movement the burnt boy made. Because you didn’t want to do this in the first place, you let Dabi carry out the ‘ritual’.

💀As you would’ve guessed, the moment Dabi’s target was acquired, the planchette began moving, much to your dismay. Slowly, the letters formed a sentence. ‘You killed me.’

💀You shot a glare at your boyfriend. “What the hell did you do? Did you seriously just kill a man to contact him?”

💀He shrugged. “I caught the guy stealing from the convenience store, he had to go.”

💀”YOU STEAL FROM CONVENIENCE STORES!”

💀After you both said ‘goodbye’, you couldn’t shake the feeling that you were being watched. It practically consumed you as the next hours passed, your eyes always finding themselves back to the abandoned board that still laid on the floor.

💀”WHAT THE FUCK!?” Dabi shouted from the bathroom, his voice one of surprise and confusion. You darted into the small room, expecting a prank left by Twice or blood left by Toga (it happens), and to be pretty honest, you were expecting this too. From the mirror, you could see eight distinct and parallel scratches on his back, too fresh and too deep not to be ignored.

💀Without a word, you bounded over to the closet and wrenched the doors apart with a set purpose. Pushing clothes out of the way, you pulled out an old chest you stored wherever you stayed. Opening the wooden box, you pulled out a match and a bundle of juniper and sage. Lighting the end of the dried herbs, and opening the nearest window, you let the smoke drift to all corners of the room.

💀Dabi watched in confusion and amusement as you walked towards him and started waving the herbs around him, cleansing him as well as the room.

💀”Y/N.”

💀“What, Dabi?”

💀”We should do it in a graveyard next time. This Halloween.”

💀”Fucking Samhain? Are you out of your goddamn mind?!”

💀He believes in ghosts now, so you had that going for ya.

🥦Midoriya would be skeptical about it. As someone who never rules out any possibilities, he has a wide range of knowledge towards that kind of thing. You never knew if someone had a quirk that could control the spirits of the dead.

🥦When you told Izuku that you see dead people, he honestly thought you were quoting The Sixth Sense. You were, in a way. In the same way you were being serious.

🥦You sat on the couch in the living room, remote in hand as you got ready to start a Marvel movie marathon when your fiancé got back from the store downtown. He got called in when someone was murdered just outside, appearing to have been trying to steal some food and magnets. Why someone would try to steal magnets from the convenience store was beyond you.

🥦Sighing, you settled into the cushions, and turned on the TV. Soon you began playing Netflix as you waited. You felt the couch dip next to you. No one was home but you, and you hadn’t heard Izuku get back yet. This was the time she came out.

🥦You faced the girl that sat next to you with a smile. “Looking for Izuku?” She nodded. “He’s not home right now, but you’re welcome to stay with me until he gets back if you like.” She thought for a minute, running a hand through her long hair, then nodded again.

🥦You scrolled through various shows until she pointed at one that sparked her interest. You began playing ‘Supernatural’, watching her reaction to each of the Winchester Brother’s ghostly adventures. “What, it’s not accurate? There’s got to be something that’s right.” You teased.

🥦The girl laughed, the sound never reaching your ears, and shook her head, continuing the show anyway.

🥦A couple episodes later, you heard the sound of keys turning in the lock, signaling your fiancé’s return. You turned to warn the girl, but she was already gone. She liked Izuku, but she was shy; something you learned upon meeting her. “He wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, you know.” You told her in a low voice as Izuku stepped into the house.

🥦He gave you a smile. “Hey, sorry for being gone so long,” he held up a plastic bag full of sweets. “They gave this to me as a thank you for helping them, so now we have even more marathon snacks.” Setting the bag on the counter, he wrapped his arms around you, giving you a firm, loving kiss to your forehead.

🥦”It’s fine, Izu. You weren’t gone that long. I had plenty of company.” You returned the hug, your last statement directed to the girl who was now peeking in from the doorway.

🥦The movie marathon was a blast. You nerded out, quoting almost every line from every movie you watched that night. The girl warmed up to Izuku, you noticed, as she sat on the floor in front of him almost as if she were nervous to sit next to him.

🥦”You can sit next to him, kid. He won’t mind.” You told her. Both pairs of eyes snapped up at your speech.

🥦Izuku looked around to see if there were any unknown guests, turning back to you when he saw none. “Uh, Y/N?”

🥦You ignored him and continued. “He’ll be nervous at first, but he’ll warm up to you. Go ahead. You were in this house long before we came here.”

🥦Izuku screeched like a banshee when he felt the couch sink next to him. Like he was a cartoon, he jumped into your arms, clutching you like he was afraid to lose you. The poor panicked boy didn’t know what to do.

🥦So, you began explaining all that you knew about your abilities, or extra quirk as he said. The girl never left, quite amused by the interaction. Izuku never really calmed down. Sure he’s prepared for it in his journals, but he never thought there would be a day.

🥦”I told you ‘I see dead people’.”

🥦”Y-yeah, I guess you did."

[hargrove-mayfields]

Just A Dream Away

Chapter 5/13 read here on ao3!

for @harringrovebigbang

~~~~

Robin gets to the phone first.

Steve was too busy wallowing in his bed to get up and answer, though he figures it might be worth seeing who it is that’s calling. None of the kids call him anymore, but he always considers, even if it’s for just a moment, that it could be an emergency. He’ll know whenever he decides to get up, or if Robin even decides to pick it up.

Its ring echoes shrill and loud in the apartment, the tone making him want to wrap himself in a blanket and never come out, so he slides out of his bed, calling down the stairs in search of a solution to end the noise, “You gonna get that Rob?”

For a moment, he wonders if she’ll even respond. It’s barely been a couple of hours since he made her cry, but she calls back, “Are you expecting a call?”

Relieved to know she at least still tolerates him, Steve answers, “Nope.”

“Then no.” Comes her simple response, and the phone ringing promptly dies out, “Guess it didn’t matter anyways.”

But almost immediately, it starts up again, somehow sounding more sharp than before. Steve tells her just to get it so the ringing will stop, coming down the steps to see for himself who it is calling.

He watches Robin pull the receiver from its base, in the place of a greeting going straight for, “What do you want?”

Steve takes note of the fact that her mood isn’t entirely better yet, though he’s definitely glad she’s taking those feelings out on the telephone and not on him, but, despite her abrasiveness, she still receives no response.

It looks like she’s going to hang up before she hears something, her features closing off as she focuses on whatever comes through the other end, “Hello? I can’t hear you. Who is this?”

There’s a whining static loud enough for even Steve to hear from the other side of the room, getting louder, and then a pop that makes the lights flicker and the phone die out, making Robin shriek and drop it, shaking out her hand.

“Son of a bitch shocked me.” She mumbles, picking up the dead receiver and showing Steve the two burnt ends.

In the moment though, something he’ll perhaps feel bad for another time, Steve isn’t worried about his friend. He isn’t rushing to see what happened and check if she got burnt, he instead just freezes up, filtering through the overwhelming questions filling his head to ask, “Did you hear who it was?”

“No, it just sounded like it was all distorted.”

Her answer is nonchalant, but it makes Steve feel weak and panicky, sitting down at the table as pale as a ghost.

That’s obviously not a normal reaction, and Robin asks, tone more afraid than concerned, which he thinks that’s appropriate for what just happened, “What’s going on Steve?”

Grimly, he explains, “Mrs Byers’ phone did that twice before, blowing up after a call just like that.”

“Okay, well maybe there’s just a storm coming and it’s just a coincidence that happened to her too?” She tries to reason, but Steve already knows, he's felt this dread before. “No, Robs. It happened because Will called her from the Upside Down.”

“But then that means-“ Robin starts, working through the implications, Steve finishing the statement for her, “Someone is trapped over there.”

“Holy shit, but the gate, hasn’t it been closed for a year and a half now?“

“Unless someone else opened it, yeah.”

Stiffly she nods, asking hesitantly, be it because of her questions or the disagreement between them earlier, “Well what do we do?”

A reflection of his lack for anything but pessimistic doomsdaying anymore, Steve worries, “What can we do, Robin? I’ve only ever fought the things that end up in our world, and you’ve never even seen half of the monsters that come from over there. We’re too overpowered here.”

More rational than her friend, Robin suggests, “I think we should get a hold of Eleven. You said she's the one that really understands any of this other dimension stuff. She can help.”

But Steve shakes his head, “Her powers are gone. She might know what to do, but I don’t think she’ll be able to do anything.”

“So you just want to leave whoever it is over there?”

“No, fuck no. That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what should we do?”

“I don’t know..” Steve frowns, thinking hard before he answers determinedly, “But whoever it is, they reached out to us. We have to help them.”

~~~~

The phone doesn’t work.

What is Billy supposed to do? He’s tried everything, and with his last resort at reaching out a dud, he’s not sure what else he even can do.

So, in true Billy Hargrove fashion, he lashes out, cursing and unnecessarily yanking the phone jack out of the wall, the plastic handheld skidding across the kitchen tile into the corner, “Goddamnit!”

The noise may have been a mistake though, because, despite how sure he was the dogs wouldn’t find this place, he hears a chitter, and the click of claws on hardwood floors. The damn thing is in the house, and his machete is by the door.

A recurring theme with these hell beasts, is that there’s never enough time to run, but unless he wants to use decorative mugs or a cookie jar to fight it, he doesn’t have much of a choice but to try.

He makes two mistakes as he runs, the first being that he hesitates, not wanting to leave Steve. Even if he couldn’t find him he had gotten so damn close, but a snarl from the dog puts things into perspective, and, with a heavy feeling of remorse in his chest, he leaves through the backdoor as quietly as he can, bolting down the rotting back steps.

His second mistake is looking over his shoulder. Just as his boots touch brittle grass, he decides just to glance back and see how much space is between him and the hellhound, but the second he sees it, he just freezes up.

Because it’s fucking big, for one thing. It has to force itself through the door frame, meaning it’s wider than he is. It has a lot more teeth than the others. It’s skin is pale and it’s limbs much longer. Something tells him the others he’s seen are immature, and this one is close to its final form, whatever that may be. Either way, he’s decidedly not fucking around with that.

The daunting unfamiliarity of this part of Hawkins, intimidating as it is, isn’t Billy’s main concern right now. He just bolts like a coward, hoping against hope that there’ll be anything along his path he won’t have to corner himself to get that can be used as a weapon, basically his only other option for surviving this that this amped up dog will get bored of him fast.

But, and really, he knew this was the case, he just hadn’t wanted to admit he was prey yet, it easily charges him, going up on its back legs to knock him off his balance. It misses at first, so he thankfully doesn’t get pushed to the ground, but his reflexes, especially when blurred by emotion, are no match to a monster of this size, and before he can even process its next move, it clamps its teeth on his arm.

Now, he’s been here for a while. He’s had scratches and cuts and welts from their tails, but he’d always been quick enough, smart enough, prepared enough to not get bit. Which he really wishes was still something he could still attest to, because it fucking hurts. Razor sharp teeth from too many mouths tear into the muscle, a stinging pain all the way from the point of impact in his wrist up to his shoulder.

It’s his fault, all this stuff with Steve was getting to his head, feeling his presence and hearing his voice again for the first time in god knows how long only to be unable to reach him. It was doing things to his judgement.

But this is still bad. Really fucking bad.

As soon as it lets go, he knows it’s going to latch onto him again, so he does what he does best in a situation where he’s hurt and scared and alone. He cries, for one thing, but he also fights. But where he’d normally just use his fists and his ego to prove his strength, this world is built differently. Even with a pocket knife to stand up for himself that’s not enough to survive, but he’s still going to make it count. If at the end of this he goes down, it won’t be without a fight.

A fight to just get back to the way things were. To prove to himself he could do this and survive. For once in his fucking life, just to overcome hardship and move the hell forward, no cycles of hatred and pain, love and respect drawing him back. Nobody else in control of his body. Nobody else holding him back from being happy.

He just wants to survive this.

There’s blood on his jacket sleeve, but Billy refuses to look at how bad the wound truly is yet. There quite frankly isn’t enough oxygen down here to afford a panic, but from the pain and the blood alone, he knows it’s not going to be good for him.

The fighting isn’t going too well either, with only one arm not weighed down by injury and a knife the size of his palm his last standing lines of defense, it’s mostly him dodging the creature and flailing his limbs to either stop an incoming bite or confuse it, both of them too confident in its ability to tear him to shreds to advance further than that.

But it gets bored of fucking around with him, and it rises to its back legs again, and Billy knows he’s fucked, squeezing his eyes shut and blocking his face, but the attack never comes. There’s a huge crack of lightning in the ever looming storm above, and a chorus of eerie chittering from more dogs at varying degrees of closeness to where they are, and it draws the attention of the big one away.

While the monster is distracted, he uses that opportunity to his advantage, takes charge of his circumstances to give himself a fighting chance. That strategy never worked for him before, only ever got him into deeper shit, but he can’t exactly just stand here and be monster bait either so, though it breaks his heart to put that distance between him and Steve, Billy chooses to run.

[lo-55]

Playing With Fire Ch. 3

Ignition

@emrysaf

You’ve decided. You’re going to marry Maki. 

You’re going to marry her and adopt Sputter and Flare, and you’ll all live happily ever after in the cathedral and- 

You’re broken out of your thoughts when Maki smacks you so hard you literally see stars and throws you on the ground. 

“... owe.”

If everything else hadn’t cemented the fact that you were really living inside Fire Force, the pain of Maki’s fist and the hard concrete under your cheek sure would have. Holy hell, how was she so strong?

You roll over on your back to look up at her. 

“I bet,” you begin, “that you could bench press me if you really wanted to.”

Maki’s cheeks pink and she huffs down at you. “Why aren’t you using your pyrokinesis? Do you think I can’t handle it?”

I have no idea how to do that! 

“Nope, Nope! I’m sure you could wipe the floor with me, it’s not that miss!” You said quickly. “I was just in awe of you, sorry,” you salute quickly, and watch pink crawl across Maki’s face. 

So cute!! 

“H-honestly! At least use your spear!” 

You perk up. Spear? The Sun Spear? Is that what you have here? An answer! Finally! An answer! 

Maki takes your surprise for something else. “No one told you that they’d sent it over ahead of you? You should really keep better of your gear.” 

You dip your head quickly. “Yes, yes. Sorry. Can you show me where it is, please?” 

“Sure,” Maki smiles at you, “We’re about done for now, anyhow. Let’s go back inside and wash up. Sister Iris and Shinra should be waiting.” 

Maki takes you back into the cathedral, away from the training area on the roof. The cathedral really is pretty run down. The walls could use a good scrubbing, the floor boards either need to be replaced or are missing entirely, and there’s a lot of cracks in the tile and missing corners. The windows are fine, if not dusty, and the stained glass pieces are really beautiful. The whole place smells faintly of burnt wood and gun oil. It’s not bad, but its certainly unfamiliar. Everything is so vivid. The way it smells. The sound of the building settling, and the birds outside, and the voices of your new comrades. 

It’s amazing. 

Kinda terrifying, but crazy cool too. 

After a quick shower for each of you Maki shows you to the weapons room, where a long, thin case is rested against a wall between two racks of guns. Obi’s shield is propped up in one corner, along with a couple of his weird stabbing things that he puts infernals to rest with. You’ve been here two days now, and you’ve seen him use it twice.

You don’t know how, but you know instinctively that that case belongs to you. 

You go to it. There’s a strap along the back, like the kind on a violin case. You carefully set it on a table, mindful of the bullets stacked on top of it. With a few clicks you undo the buttons on either end and open up the case. Inside is a long staff, deep red in color and capped at the bottom with copper colored metal that curves into a diamond point. On the opposite end is a thin band of the same metal, that reveals the inside to be hollow. 

You pick it up carefully, testing its weight in your hands. It feels natural. Even though you’ve never actually fought with a spear before your body knows where to hold it, and how to spin it around elegantly until you’re facing Maki again. Your body knows how much space you’re taking up, and how not to hit the walls, while your brain geeks out over the fact that you’re actually holding the Sun Lance. 

So cool! 

Is it conceited to say that you’re super cool? Or that this was hella badass? 

You were almost bouncing on your toes you were so excited. 

“Wow, I didn’t know you missed your spear this much,” Maki smiled at you. “You look good with it.” 

“Aha, you think so? It’s just nice to have it I guess. This has been, I dunno. An adventure already. I’m in a strange place, with strange people, and I’m in an awfully dangerous situation. It’s been an adjustment, ya know?” 

You feel like a fool for rambling, but Maki smiles at you kindly. 

“I understand. Even though I was raised in a military family, it took me a while to get used to life as a fire soldier too. Don’t worry too much about it, and you know, we’re always here to help. It’s not like you have to go it alone.” 

You’re heart warms with her words. “Yeah. Thank you, Maki. You’re really a nice person.” 

Once the Sun Lance is safe in its case the two of you leave the armory, and make your way to the dorm rooms. 

Since the company is so small, each person gets their own room. In bigger companies you would be in actually dorms, or barracks, but the eighth only has Obi, Hinawa, Maki, Sister Iris, Shinra, and yourself. Arthur will be here soon too, and Tamaki. Your small company will grow soon. 

Your own room ended up being at the top of one of the towers on the west side of the cathedral, opposite of the garage. Which meant that last night, when the alarm had gone off, you’d been the last to arrive at the Matchbox. Near the garage are the locker rooms, and the communal showers, although there’s more bathrooms scattered through the base. 

In the center of the cathedral is the courtyard where Sister Iris purifies herself, and grows flowers. 

It’s really a nice place. 

“Thank you,” you say again, and Maki nods to you and leaves you to climb the steps on your own. You shut the door and lock it behind you. 

Your room is scant, all things considered. A bunk bed it pushed into each corner, with a desk underneath it. You’ve claimed the one nearest to the window. There’s a wardrobe on the opposite side, and a small, stocky book shelf. 

You need to hang up some pictures or get a rug or something. It’s entirely impersonal. 

You rest your Sun Lance up against the corner by the window and go to sit at the desk under your bed. You’ve already unpacked your few belongings into the wardrobe and the drawers of the desk, including the diary from ‘Fuyuki’. 

Your ‘sister’. The game honestly hadn’t told you a whole lot about her. Just that she disappeared, and what few flashbacks you would have now and again. Like the one you got when you touched your ring and the lighter.  

You open it up with careful hands. 

Inside the handwriting is familiar, even if the words aren’t. There’s no mistaking your hand writing. It looks like a serial killer in a movie has left a ransom note made out of letters cut out of magazines. 

I wonder if there’s cereal in the kitchen. 

You always think better when you’re snacking. 

To keep your thoughts in order, you scatterbrain.

<3 Fuyuki 

 The first entry is dated for 193 AC. After the Cataclysm. It’s 198 now, so this was given to MAIN (to you?) five years ago. That would have been right before she graduated the fire academy and joined her company. A year before she disappeared, around 194. 

It feels invasive to read the diary of the person whos life you’ve taken over, but you need answers and you don’t have a lot of options here. 

I can’t believe Fuyuki gave me a diary! That’s so lame, and super girly. I don’t really want to write in it, but she gave it to me so I guess I should? Even if I am kinda mad at her. She left to go to school years ago and she never comes home! She’s so mean but then she’s nice and its so frustrating! Not fair. Stupid sister. 

But i’ll try i guess. There’s not much else to do in the house. None of the other kids really wanna play with me, and the Yagi’s are busy watching the littler kids. And maybe i’ll have kids and their kids will have kids will have kids will have kids and i’ll be their super cool ancestor and they’ll read this for inspiration or something. 

Good god, how old were they when they started writing this? Twelve? How old even were you? 

Fuck it. 

You kept reading. They/you weren’t a regular writer, with long months going between entries. Some of them were sad, some of them were happy, most of them were angry. They had a lot of complicated feelings on the sister who had abandoned them to what was basically a group home outside Asakusa, and then bitterness at themselves for being so angry when she disappeared. But most of it wasn’t that useful. It was about grades and teachers, and grief. They got into a lot of fights, and they were something of a scrapper. They were briefly enrolled in martial arts classes, but they had to quit because they were too rough with the other kids. So they were a scrapper, but that wasn’t anything related to fire. 

You rubbed your temples and glared at the diary. How did it answer your questions but leave you with more? 

Why is this my life now? 

So much here didn’t make sense, nonetheleast the fact that you were here to begin with. Well. At least you finally knew what your pyrokinesis was right? Even if using it was nearly impossible, and you couldn’t make sense of everything. 

Of course, there were plenty of things in this world that didn’t make sense. Like how sound could turn fire into ice. 

Bringing back the dead made more sense than that! 

You cross your arms and glare at the diary. So far the only useful bit is the part where you’ve had some decent training. Everything else is just the most vague information about the investigation into her sister’s disappearance. That much you already knew, although you didn’t have time to read everything in it. There were big gaps that you just knew were holding important information! 

At a loss, you flipped to the very last written on page, halfway through, and froze. 

Staring back at you was your own face. A small picture. It was your resume for the squad assignments, with your own check boxes and preferences listed. Underneath it was the list you had written before, of Everything You Knew. It was short, with little screen caps here and there. You flipped the page and found it filling itself in with ink that didn’t come from a pen, finishing up what it started on the page before. 

A new page started, this one listed your stats. 

In game there were a hundred levels. You had gotten maybe halfway through? A third if you rounded down. And it listed your level at 40. Underneath had your attack power, defense, stamina, agility, and your special moves. 

You were weirdly well rounded. Three out of five bars for everything, except the SM, which only had one. 

But, you hadn’t put that there! 

You quickly flipped it back and forth before you went to the very, very last page in the diary. On the back cover the ink finally finished filling out. A progress bar. 

You stared at it for a long, long time, trying to work over everything was happening. 

So. 

Now you knew what you could do. Just not how to do it. 

You were out of options at this point. You were just going to have to suck it up. 

You were going to have to ask someone for help directly. 

 ~

Shinra looks up from his work when you plop into the seat across from him, your arms crossed across your chest. It would be a lie to say you’re not nervous. You’re not even totally sure how you’re supposed to ask these questions, but you don’t have any other way to go about this any more. 

You tried the diary. You’ve spent two and a half days trying to get your ignition ability to work without help. Admittedly, you hadn’t even know how your ability was meant to manifest at the time, but even now you can’t get it to work.  

“Oh, hey there,” Shinra offers you an awkward smile. You grin right back, trying to project as much happy-go-lucky-nothing-wrong-here-!-  as you can. It’s made easier by the fact that prior to a few days ago, no one here had known you as anything more than a passing acquaintance. 

“Hi Shinra. I’ve got a weird question for you,” you announce bluntly. 

Shinra looks a little more wary, and he’s starting to smile. 

“Oh yeah? What is it?” 

“Ah, it’s pretty simple actually. How do you activate your abilities?” 

“Huh?” 

“How do you-” 

“No, I heard you,” he holds up his hand to cup you off. “It’s just a weird question.” 

“Hey man, I told you it was gonna be one.” 

You stare at each other for a long minute before Shinra huffs and looks towards the ceiling. He might not be the best person to ask. Maybe you should ask Maki, but Shinra makes you feel secure and you trust him more than anyone else just yet. 

“How do I activate my abilities? I dunno. I guess for me it’s more like I have to turn it off.” 

You tilt your head, listening intently to Shinra. 

“When I was a kid… I had a hard time controlling my flames. They started up suddenly, and burned through my shoes and pants. I ended up wearing these extinguisher boots, and shorts, so I wouldn’t destroy everything around me. It took a long time to figure out what was going on, but someone finally explained it to me. For a lot of third generation pyrokinetics, the thing that triggers out ability is the memory of the first time they happened.” 

You falter. “But, wait. Didn’t yours activate when-” 

“Yeah,” he cuts in, shooting you a grin that’s anything but happy. Your heart clenches in your chest. 

“Oh god, Shinra…” That meant that every time he used his powers, he had to remember his mother’s ‘death’ and his brother's disappearance. He had to think of pain and fear and grief, and he used his flames so often-

“It’s okay,” he cuts in. You can’t imagine what kind of face you’re making. “It was painful at first, and it still is, but it’s a good reminder for what I’m fighting for, and why I’m working so hard towards that goal. I will find a way to stop human combustion. I will make sure no one else ever has to grieve the way I did.”  

“Shinra,” you say softly. “You really are something.” 

Shinra tries to shrug off your words, but his smile is a little more genuine. “I just wanna be a hero.” 

“You will be,” you promise him. It’s all you can do not to tell him the truth then and there. His mother is alive, and suffering. His brother is alive, and suffering. 

They need help. 

But you hold your tongue. You don’t have any way of proving it to him, and there’s already so many things that are different here than they were in the game, or the show. Your presence being one of them. 

You let out a breath. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up something so painful.” 

Shinra shakes his head. “What made you ask?” 

“Honestly?” you rubbed the back of your neck, “I’ve been having trouble using my abilities since we left the academy. I thought maybe if I asked you how you do it, I might be able to figure it out.” 

Shinra looks startled. “Really? I guess that explains why you haven’t used them in the last few days. You never really held back when we were training.” 

“Sorry to disappoint?” you offer lamely. “I just can’t figure it out.” 

“Well… Have you thought about when you first activated your powers?” 

“That’s just it,” you say sadly. “I don’t remember when it happened at all. So that’s not really an option for me.” 

“Oh.” 

You frown, and draw in on yourself. You can’t help it. You have no way to activate the powers you now know you have, and you’re in a bad place to be powerless in general. Not to mention these people are going to expect you to help, and you can’t help, and if you can’t help then- 

Shinra’s hands land on your shoulders, startling you. It’s a warm touch, one that sinks into you with comfort and kindness. Shinra looks seriously at you, his red eyes bright and intent. 

“Whatever happens, I know you’ll figure it out, and I’ll help you as much as I can. Even if I have to protect you in missions for now. So put your trust in me for now, okay?” 

Your heart thumps hard in your chest and heat spreads through your body. It grows hotter and hotter, centering somewhere in your chest and your back. 

Light blooms behind you and you barely turn your head to see a flicker of white fire over your shoulders, wings stretching over your back. They’re small, going no further down than you’re elbows and no further up than your jaw, pale and white and glowing. 

You recognize the feeling in your chest with a start. 

It’s care. Friendship. You want to help them. You want to fight for them and earn and keep their trust. The flickering embers of love bloom into a fire across your shoulders and flutter with undistinguished feather’s. 

~ ~

A/N So! Phoenix is my favorite power, but everyone else seemed inclined towards the Sun Lance, so I smashed them both together!

If you’re so inclined, let me know what you think :D

[writingbakery]

“what’s new, pussycat?”

this work is my absolute pride & joy, one that i hold very near & dear to my heart! it was previously written for a different fandom, & ive reworked it to fit here. i hope you love it as much as i do, & yes - there will be more parts to this story! ✨taglist; @katsukisprincess @secondhand-trash @redbeanteax @monst @shinhoetoshi @shinsouzone @togasknifes

[pairing; panther familiar! hitoshi shinso x green witch gn! reader]

[warnings; fluff, meet-cutes, magical au, bitchy witches, soft words, strangers to lovers]

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

for a green witch in a relatively small town, you’ve got a pretty good life.

you’re not the most powerful witch around; your talents are more centered around healing, crafting potions & spells, but you don’t mind. you like helping people, whisking away their problems & leaving them happier than when they walked into your little shop.

your shop is perfectly situated right at the forest line at the end of town, making it easy for you to restock your supply. you don’t get many customers, but you treat everyone like they’re most important, focusing on what they need & providing them with just what they’ve asked for. you don’t have many friends, most of the other witches not thinking much of your talents or your profession - they were all more modern witches, using electricity & technology to help others - but the ones you do have treat you nothing but kindly.

you’ve got everything you need in your little shop; a tiny apartment just above it, a loyal customer base, & the forest to soothe your worries.

the only thing you don’t have is a familiar.

you turned twenty six months ago, the age at which every witch receives their familiar. sometimes, it happens sooner, sometimes it takes a little longer. you’re just a hint impatient.

you’ve been ready for your familiar since your powers emerged at six years old, little flowers & vines bursting from chubby fingers & small palms. your friends even had a betting pool set up, sero swearing that you would get a kitty cat, & kirishima insisting it would be a rabbit.

you don’t care what your familiar is. you just want to meet them.

you’ve nagged your mother more than enough over the years, whining & complaining at your lack of a companion - both the animal aspect of them, & the human. familiars often became their witches’ best friends, & on most occasions, have fallen in love with them.

it’s a romantic concept, really. two magical beings, tied together forever by their shared powers, falling in love.

you’ve had dreams about it. kaminari makes fun of you for it whenever he can.

still, you don’t need to fall in love with your familiar. you love them already for supporting & adding to your magic, even if you haven’t met yet. you just know you’re going to be the best of friends.

you also side with sero. you’re definitely hoping for a kitty.

you alway tell your friends you don’t mind being patient, but secretly, you wish your familiar would speed things up a bit.

the other witches in town don’t tease you outright, a bit more poised than that, but you’ve heard more than enough whispered giggles of “bet it’s a fly, & it just can’t find them” & “maybe [y/n]’s just too weak for one”. you know they consider you a joke, a laughingstock, but you do your best to ignore them, burying your head in your spellbooks & inventing new potion strains.

you’re good at what you do, & that’s all that matters. but with a familiar, at least you’d fit in. you’re not expecting anything huge, not like the wolf inasa got, or the pheonix momo was gifted. you just want something that’ll care for you, help with your little tasks & fill the hole in your heart.

you even have a little side room set up in your shop for them, complete with a small fluffy bed & lots of pillows. kaminari had wrinkled his nose at the setup. “what if they don’t like all the fluff?” he’d asked - his familiar, an overexcited ring tailed lemur named mina, had absolutely destroyed the setup kaminari made for her, choosing to snuggle the taller witch in her human form every night. you had a separate betting pool with kirishima & bakugou about when those two would finally start dating.

mostly, you just hope your familiar won’t be disappointed with you. you aren’t the fastest on a broomstick, or the smartest with spells. your potions are good, but they take you a while to brew, & you don’t get that many customers. you’re definitely not the best witch in town, but you try your best, & you hope that counts for something.

it ends up counting for a lot, even if you don’t realize.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

you’re looking through your little vials & plants one day, crafting a rejuvenation potion for mrs. parks - she’s got a garden to maintain if she wants to win first place in the landscaping competition next week, & at 85 it doesn’t always come naturally - when you realize you’re clean out of starflower. the pretty little orange & yellow foliage always added an extra boost to your energy potions, & you chance a glance out of your shop windows. it’s a nice day, sunny but not too hot, & you easily tug on your jacket & basket to gather some from the forest.

the air is warm, floaty with the smell of spring & you bask in the pleasant heat of the sun as you walk. the forest is unusually quiet, a sort of energetic thrum hovering just under the surface & normally, you would be concerned. but the day is so lovely, the warmth seeping into your bones & you brush it off as a slight imbalance in the woods.

you find the right clearing relatively quickly, sitting cross legged amidst the flowers & beginning to pluck them. you coo to the brightly colored petals gently, asking them to feel safe, protected. you wouldn’t hurt them, nor waste them unnecessarily. they were headed to a good purpose, & you reassure them as such as they make their way into your basket.

the already quiet air stills suddenly, birds silent in the trees & leaves pausing their ruffling. you shut your eyes & soaks up the sudden silence, an odd sense of calm settling over your body before you open them again.

a pair of amethyst violet eyes stare back at you, barely ten feet away from your face.

you open your mouth to scream, but let out nothing but air; your breath seems caught in your throat, lodged painfully deep. the creature in front of you is still, black fur gleaming glossy in the afternoon sun - a panther, twice the size of any normal big cat, sharp fangs glinting in its large mouth. you just stare, frozen & wide eyed.

the panther tilts its head at you inquisitively, letting out a sharp exhale through its velvety - almost cute? - black nose. you do scream this time, a barely there squeak that youd defend to your dying day as a very aggressive yell.

& then you pass clean out, slumping to the cool forest floor.

above you, the panther simply snorts, rolling bright purple eyes in mild annoyance as it curls its lithe form around your unconscious body, settling in for a nap.

it protects you from harm, patiently waiting for you to wake up.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

you wake up confused & a little dizzy.

you’ve only been out about an hour, but already the sun sits lower in the sky, a chill sweeping through the quiet wood. you’re disoriented, taking a few moments to remember where you are, & why. youre warm despite the cool forest air, body swathed in silky softness. you burrow deeper into the warmth, sighing softly as you toe the line between sleep & awake.

then you remember the panther.

shooting straight up from the dirt, you look around wildly, all traces of sleepiness gone as you take in your surroundings.

the panther lays curled around you like a warm blanket, keeping you tucked up against its shoulder with massive black paws crossed in front of your legs. it’s fast asleep, not even stirring as you shift a little to study its face.

gold runes run from the tips of each large, silky ear, trailing down either side of its face to its long whiskers. each rune matches one on your own arms, elegantly winding down your smooth skin. a little flutter settles in your chest.

this is your familiar.

you run one slim finger down the sides of the panther’s sleeping face, gentle & light as you trace over the marks that mirror the ones you’ve had since birth. it’s a little nerve wracking, a little unreal.

you’re so awestruck you don’t feel a pair of sharp violet eyes tracking your every move, looking just a little fond.

you start a little when the panther stretches, long heavy limbs arcing out into the air as it yawns. you get a good eyeful of sharp, gleaming white fangs & an impossibly cute pink tongue before the panther is staring at you again, seemingly waiting for your next move.

oh right.

hastily clambering to your feet, you stand in front of the lying animal, just about level with its head. you swallow a little nervously, shifting from foot to foot as you look up into bright, curious eyes.

“a-are you my familiar?” you ask, immediately cursing yourself for stammering & asking stupid questions. you’re supposed to have your shit together, you’re the witch here.

the panther seems unfazed, if not a little amused, as it nods once, then twice, eyes twinkling in the sunlight. your own eye twitches.

you’ve got a familiar. a panther familiar. you, [y/n l/n], who can’t fly a broomstick straight & nearly burnt down your shop crafting a potion last week.

suddenly everything seems a whole lot less simple than it was before.

bracing your hands against your knees to catch your breath, you let your mind go wild, running through a million thoughts at once. what would the other witches say? what would your friends say? how the fuck was this panther going to fit inside your house?

you don’t have a single answer for any of them that won’t send you into a panic.

your stomach ends up deciding for you, the low rumble of it breaking the tense silence. the panther actually does roll its eyes at you this time, standing to its full - very, very tall height & moving to kneel at your side. it motions towards its back a little impatiently, & you scramble to climb on.

you can feel lean, powerful muscle underneath you as the panther begins to walk through the forest, quickly shifting through the underbrush towards town.

it’s much quicker than you walking on your own, & you appreciate that.

you know you’re going to get plenty of stares once you hit town, & you’ve already got a plan set: make it through quickly, avoid questions, & once you’ve got the both of you locked up in your shop, the panther can shift to its human form & introduce themselves. simple.

the second you step foot - & paw - into the town, you know you’re screwed.

all of the townsfolk are staring wide eyed, giving the pair of you a very wide berth as the panther trots along the street. hushed whispers are already circulating, & you can feel endless sets of eyes digging into your back.

just a couple more feet, a few more moments. then we’ll be safe, you think as your shop comes into view, breathing a quiet sigh of relief. you slide down off the panthers back to unlock the door & usher it in, locking it behind you both with another relieved sigh. you relax too soon.

there, in your kitchen, sit sero & kirishima, both gaping as they stare at the massive panther in your foyer. sero’s got a teapot in one hand, the other cupping the air - a shattered mug at his feet.

“we came for tea,” kirishima squeaks. sero is dumbfounded where he stands. the panther huffs unamused, tail flicking & breaking one of the china plates along the wall.

you sink to the floor in despair.

what the fuck, is all you can think, burying your head in your hands.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

your friends take it all in surprisingly well. sero sweeps up the shattered mug & dish, kirishima makes them all tea, & you have a mild panic attack.

the panther simply curls up in a corner of the shop, avoiding everything delicate as it takes up a good chunk of the space. kirishima can’t stop staring at it, eyes blown wide as he takes in every inch of the creature.

“it’s really yours? your familiar?” he’d asked, voice hushed. you swatted at his arm with a scowl, glancing over at the uninterested panther. “stop talking about it like it’s not here! you know it can hear you.”

truthfully, however, you don’t even think the panther is listening. it has an air of disinterest clouded around it, lazily examining its paws & twitching its whiskers every so often.

sero maintains that he won the bet, much to your chagrin. “it’s just a really big cat!” he insists. kirishima simply rolls his eyes & tells him to take it up with bakugou.

it takes an hour or two, but eventually you manage to shoo your friends out of your shop, a headache building at their incessant questioning - “so what's its name? boy or girl? did it try to eat you? why is it looking at me like that?” - & all you want to do is sleep.

you lead the panther to the small side room you’d dolled up, albeit for a much smaller animal, wincing at the judgemental look you receive in return. “right, that won’t work. i mean, you could stay in my bed? it’s really big, just a bunch of cushions & blankets on a floor mattress?” you offer, twisting your fingers in your shirt a little shyly. the panther pauses, then nods again, squeezing its massive frame through the narrow staircase to follow you upstairs.

your bed - a custom made mattress that spanned nearly across the entirety of your bedroom floor - seemed to accommodate the panther just fine, and it paced around once, twice, before settling in one corner of it. its lithe form took up a good two thirds of the mess of blankets, & you can’t help but coo at the sight. it really was just a big kitty cat, although you’d probably never say it to the creature’s face.

you busy yourself with getting ready for bed, washing your face, brushing your teeth & changing into your baggy blue silk pajamas - they’ve got little yellow crescent moons sewn into them, & you swear the panther laughs at you in them - before settling between the sheets.

“goodnight, mr. panther,” you mumble sleepily, silently hoping that things would be easier to fix in the morning before drifting off to dreams.

above you, the panther huffs a little fondly, nuzzling your soft little cheek before falling asleep as well.

—

the next few days aren’t any easier.

for one, you’re swamped with customers for the first time ever, people crowding into the tiny shop to catch a glimpse of the enormous panther curled up in the corner. normally you wouldn’t allow it, but the panther doesn’t seem to mind, & everyone who walks in leaves with something - you’re making a killing.

another little problem: the arrival of your - rather powerful - familiar means your own abilities have gotten a much needed boost. everything you make is soaked in energy, & your plants are shooting towards the ceiling every other hour.

in short, you’re probably the most powerful nature witch in the country, let alone the county.

you appreciate the fact that you’re better at what you do, but it tires you out quicker, & you’re twice as busy now that you can do so much.

all of this would be reasonably manageable, if your familiar wasn’t still stuck in its animal form.

the panther’s refused to shift for the entirety of the time you’ve known it, staying in its animal form in the corner of the shop. it simply watches & observes, occasionally nudging the right vial or plant closer to you with its large black nose. it’s a cute sight, the little nature witch bustling around the shop in your emerald green robes, a huge black panther tracking your every move with a fond expression. you’ve started to get comfortable around it as well, but you would like to get to know it eventually, & you enlist kirishima’s help.

the more experienced witch drops by with an old history book one afternoon when you aren’t as busy, the pair of you sitting at the table to read up on familiars.

“it says here familiars usually shift within the first day of meeting their witch,” kiri reads from the book, squinting at the tiny text. you had shooed the panther into the garden so you could talk uninterrupted, & you watch as the large creature nips at the butterflies circling its head. it makes you smile, heart a little fond at the sight.

“it’s been almost a week, kiri,” you pout, looking up at the witch in concern. maybe it's not comfortable with me yet, you add in your head. your stomach twists uncomfortably at the thought.

kirishima, seemingly sensing your worry, ruffles a hand through your hair, a reassuring smile on his face.

“don’t worry, [y/n]. i’m sure they’re still getting used to being here with you,” the taller comforts you. “just give it a little time.”

watching as your familiar tramples your hydrangeas, looking up at the window with a guilty expression on its face, you can only sigh.

“i hope you’re right.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

nearly two months later, you’re starting to doubt kirishima’s advice.

your familiar still hasn’t shifted in front of you, although you’ve got a sneaking suspicion it does while you’re asleep, a smattering of all black clothes hidden in random corners of his shop.

you still know absolutely nothing about them, every question you throw at the panther met with unblinking silence. but the panther knows all about you.

it knows which tea you prefer in the morning & evening, nudging out the right canisters with one massive paw. it knows every plant in your shop & garden, delicately ripping out whichever ones you need with sharp fangs. it knows to growl when a potion is boiling over, or huff when a customer is at the door. it even ran off a few thieves a week ago, snarling with its hackles raised at the foot of the stairs as they screamed & ran. you had given it an hour long head massage, complete with ear scratches, as a thank you.

the panther has settled itself in your shop & your life almost perfectly, a constant presence that you’ve grown fond of. but it doesn’t change the fact that they still haven’t revealed themselves to you. you feel like this relationship is ridiculously imbalanced; the panther knows you inside & out. you don’t even know their name.

still, you push down any doubt or insecurities you’re feeling, determined to let the panther come to you in your own time.

the mayor’s birthday changes all of that.

the mayor always requests a grand celebration, complete with magical fireworks, charmed balloons, singing lilies, & a three tier magical cake. normally, he only requests singing lilies & roses from you.

this year, you get a golden invoice for everything.

the mayor wants you to craft the cake, enchant the balloons & streamers, gather the singing flowers, and charm the fireworks, all in less than two days. you immediately break into a sweat.

you can’t ask your friends for help, as they’re tied up in their own town’s festivities. your only choice is to get the other witches’ in town; surely they’d help with the mayor’s birthday celebration.

surely not. they laugh you away from their shops the moment you ask, a pleading expression on your face.

“you shouldn’t need help, little dirt witch. you’ve got that powerful familiar of yours, don’t you? unless you can’t handle it,” they mock you, & your fists clench unwillingly; you force yourself to breathe.

you don’t need their help, or their disdain. you’re going to do it all by yourself.

you start with the flowers, collecting the brightest & loudest singers from your garden & placing them in charmed rainwater to keep them pristine. the panther helps where it can, delicately holding them between its fangs.

enchanting the streamers & balloons takes the better part of the day, & you’re up late into the night crafting the fireworks the right way. you fall asleep in a spellbook, the cake left forgotten till the morning. the panther simply rests its head next to yours on the table, the pair of you fast asleep until the next day.

when you wake up, the birds are chirping steadily outside, sunlight filtering in through the windows. it’s calm & soothing, & for a moment you’re at peace.

then you see the time, panic immediately setting in.

“wake up! wake up! i have to have the cake ready in four hours! it’s going to take me three just to mix the batter!” you’re running around the shop in a flurry of robes & quick spells, arms full of supplies. the panther just watches from its position on the floor, eyebrow quirked.

you’re halfway through mixing the batter when you realize you won’t finish in time.

you can’t focus on charming all three tiers at once as he mixes, but if you do them one by one you won’t finish in time. you pause, turning desperate eyes onto the panther.

“i know you’re not ready, & i didn’t want to push, but please. i need your help,” you plead. hands clasped in front of you & flour in your hair. the panther continues to stare, unmoving, as though immune to your begging.

it’s too much all at once, stress & anxiety building until you snap.

“why not! why! i get it! i understand you’re disappointed! i’m not some high tech witch in a big city, i’m not powerful! i’m weak & i suck & i can’t brew potions fast without blowing them up & i fell off my broomstick in the garden & you saw, i know! i just need help, for god’s sake! just help me, & you don’t ever have to talk to me again!” you promise, eyes watery as you burst into tears.

dropping your head into your hands to muffle your sobs, you barely register the faint whirling of air in front of you.

hands suddenly flutter over your crying form, hovering just above touching you as a low, rough voice pulls you from your misery.

“please stop crying, shit, please, i’m sorry, i swear i didn’t mean to make you cry, fuck,” you hear, & you tilt your head up, rubbing tears from your eyes.

there’s a man standing in front of you, wearing all black. he’s got messy purple hair sticking up from all sides & dark eyes, a hint of violet flashing through them in the light. there’s circles as dark as his clothes under his eyes, a familiar look on his face - like you’d seen it every morning waking up.

this ridiculously handsome man, looking slightly panicked, is your familiar. every time you’d called him a “pretty kitty” suddenly flashes through your mind.

fuck.

pushing all those thoughts to the back of your mind, you straighten up, hastily wiping your eyes on your robe sleeves. “can you stir the second pot, please? i’ll worry about the other ones,” you ask meekly, a little embarrassed now. you ignore the familiar’s prying gaze, simply muttering spells under your breath as you stir the first mixture.

the pair of you don’t speak unless it’s instructions, racing around the tiny shop to craft the magical cake. flour & sugar & icing cover every available surface as you wave your hands, whisking it all over the towering cake. you struggle a little to reach the very top, on your tiptoes as you attempt to frost the highest tier. warm, strong hands grip your waist & lift you right off the ground, holding you up to help; you blush furiously as you quickly finish.

you’re just putting the final smattering of glitter onto the cake when the mayor’s party attendants arrive to collect it. you can finally breathe as you watch them carry off everything you both had made, shoulders sagging in relief.

your familiar leans against the counter, wiping down the tables with a rag as he watches you. now that everything’s been finished, there’s no avoiding it.

“i’m hitoshi. that’s my name,” the panther - hitoshi - offers, presumably sensing your nerves. “& for the record, i think you’re a great witch. youre powerful all on your own, even without me.”

you can’t help your smile at that, a little flush to your cheeks as you sit at the table. “then.. then why didn’t you shift?” you ask softly. up close, you can see tiny freckles in place of hitoshi’s whiskers, the glossiness of his hair reminiscent of his panther fur.

the familiar shrugs, cheeks going a bit pink themselves as he stares at the table. “at first, i was just a little shy. it’s nerve wracking, meeting your witch. & then you just… passed out, you know? i was worried about how you’d react, so i decided to give you time.” you can understand that, listening closely.

“you were so nice to me, you weren’t scared at all. you scratched behind my ears & made me cleansing potions. & you let me stay in your bed, so easily. you were just…. nicer than i expected. and…. and prettier.” the familiar’s cheeks are a rosy red now, bright in contrast to his soft skin & prominent dark circles. you think it’s adorable.

“i just didn’t want you to think any different of me, you know? you liked panther me a lot, even though i kept breaking stuff, &.... i wanted you to keep liking me.” you outright coo at that, ignoring your familiar’s protests as you dissolve into giggles.

“really? of course i’d still like you, silly! i let you cuddle me! i called you mr whiskers for a solid month! oh god, i called you mr whiskers,” you whine, pouting a little. you’d called hitoshi a bunch of silly nicknames before he’d shifted, from pretty kitty to mr whiskers to sugarpaws. you’d been trying to compensate, in your defense, & hitoshi had seemed to like them.

hitoshi’s the one laughing now, smile bright as he gives you that same fond look. “it was cute. you were trying really hard,” he admits, head cocked to the side as he watches you.

you sit in a comfortable sort of silence then, simply taking in each other’s presence a moment.

“so, you thought i was pretty, huh?” you tease, breaking the silence as you move to stand in front of hitoshi. you giggle more at the flush that follows, ignoring hitoshi’s mumbling rant about “soft little witches” & “green robes & moon pajamas, that's ridiculous”, your smile growing ever wider.

you tap a finger against hitoshi’s nose, the familiar protesting in flustered panic. standing on tiptoe, you press a light kiss to the cranberry stained cheek, watching hitoshi absolutely melt.

“i thought you were cute too, pretty kitty,” you smile, turning to tidy up the pots & spellbooks & leaving an awestruck hitoshi at the table, hand frozen where you had pressed your lips.

i could get used to that, you think, giggling as hitoshi trips over himself to squish you against the counter, covering your face in kisses.

just you, your shop, & one pretty kitty.

[oftenderweapons]

Stress Reliever - Yoongi

Pairing: Yoongi x reader (nicknamed Kitten)

Wordcount: 3.7k words

Genre: fluff, smut, angst 

Rating: 18+

Yeah! It’s Yoongi time! 

What would he do to relieve some stress with you? Let go of his temper? I’ll cut this short and go straight to trigger warnings.

TRIGGER WARNING: unprotected sex within an established relationship (please y’all, I love you, be careful), mentions of quickie(s), grinding and making out, BDSM relationship, enough pent up pressure to power a small city, breaking of rules and disobedience, masturbation, sending nudes/sexy vocal texts/sexting, mild bondage, punishment, heavy marking (bites and hickeys), tits worship, choking kink, mild spit play, mentions of blindfolds and cocksleeve, mild degradation kink, outright hammering, yoongi feat. oral fixation except his mouth goes everywhere except near your pussy (it’s a punishment, bish, no way he’ll pleasure you with that technology of his). Mild angst because yeah, master’s not happy you went against the rules. 

Here is my masterlist! ENJOY!

--------------------------------

Yoongi wakes up heavily, trying to switch off the alarm not to disturb you. Today you could finally rest after your boss had called you in to work even during the weekend, due to the important partnership you had to plan and secure. Since your part of the work was now over, you had been given a couple days to rest before dedicating yourself entirely to the new collaboration. 

As you felt him move beside you, you latched onto him, your limbs clinging around him, lips searching for his neck. No way you could let go of his body heat. 

“Come on, baby, just one more day and then I have a free week.” September was almost over and his summer schedule left him some spare time before the group began planning their winter activities. 

You moaned, kissing his breastbone through his loose undershirt, his hand combing the hair on your nape, holding your head close as he tried to remove the leg you had thrown over his hips. He caressed the back of your thigh, his hand stretching over the soft of your glute. 

“Don’t go.” Your lips tried something more convincing, peppering small kisses over the pale skin of his neck and jaw.

He groaned loudly, his gravelly morning voice making your insides quiver. Smiling slightly as you saw him hesitate, you pressed your belly to his crotch, hoping that the warmth of your body and the comfort of the bed could convince him to stay long enough for a morning quickie, making him get ready in a rush and leave the house still slightly dazed with the orgasm -- or orgasms -- and the fretting.

“I love you.” He murmured, kissing your head and caressing your back, almost pushing back into you, both your hips and his slipping into the natural pace you had learnt a couple weeks after you had started dating. He made it feel too easy. 

“But I really have to go, kitten.” He groaned, using your small victory against you: you had loosened your grip on him, thinking you had won him over, but at your first distraction, he was already climbing out of bed, stumbling a little before entering the bathroom. 

Your loud whine echoed in the room, your legs now helplessly caught in the sheets. “Don’t tease, kitten.” He called from the bathroom. 

You let out a childish grumble, but then turned on the other side, as he exited the bathroom, selecting his outfit for the day and bending over the bed. 

“Are you upset, kitten?” He asked, caressing your hair. 

You just turned and closed your eyes. His mean snicker made you even more resentful. Heading for the kitchen, you heard him making some coffee, then proceeding to preparing breakfast. Not like you intended to get up. 

Twenty minutes later he entered your room again, leaning over you. “I left you some food in the kitchen. Coffee is ready and still warm.” He kissed your cheek, at which you grimaced almost imperceptibly. “Quit it, kitten. I’ll be back tonight. And from midnight on, I’m all yours for a week.”  

“I hate you.” You murmured, only half convinced. 

“We both know you don’t.” He kissed you again, and this time you held his hand. “Because I love you. And you love me too.” He caressed your face. “And I promise tonight I’m gonna spoil you, so be patient, yes kitten?” 

You opened your eyes, putting your best dollface on. 

“There she is.” He smiled big, the softest expression making your heart melt all over your chest. “Can you do that for me? Be patient for me?” He crooned.

You nodded.

“Good girl.” He freed his hand, smiling at you more softly. “Wish me good day.”

“Have a nice day.” You mumbled, trying to hide your pout. 

“You too, kitten.” And with that he left for the day. 

You turned around and fell asleep once more. Unfortunately, the oneiric version of you still remembered all the lost possibilities of earlier that morning and your imagination didn’t hold back at all. 

You woke up frustrated, needy and alone, your midday nap ruined. There was no use in trying to stay in bed, so you got up and hit the shower. Brushing off your sweat, you dedicated some time to self care, feeling like a queen by the time you were done, and while laying on the bed after your beauty routine, you noticed your reflection, your self esteem surging at your fresh looks. 

Would a selfie hurt? 

After pondering it a little, you grabbed your phone and took a few pictures, a mischievous intent awakening in your brain. You uncovered your chest slightly, Yoongi’s mark appearing on the soft curve of your breast. 

Licking your lips, with an innocent look in your eyes, you pressed the button and, happy with the black and white filter, you breathed out and hit send. 

“Do you think it’s fading?” You wrote this as a caption.

You casually scrolled through your social media, naked on the bed as you waited for his reply. 

You didn’t have to wait much. 

“For fuck’s sake. I can’t even come home for lunch, busy.” A few seconds later. “I’m touching it up tonight.”

Excitement filled your veins. “Please do.” You texted back. 

“You can count on it, baby.” He wasn’t the type to double text. Not twice in a row. So you were quite surprised when another bubble appeared. “Don't get started without me.”

A reminder and a warning. And, against your better judgement, your rebellious streak started tiptoeing around it, deciding that he was already turned on, so you might as well make him frustrated and turned on. 

One hand heading south, your grin devilish, you felt the wetness at the apex of your thighs, pooling there at the intended meaning of his texts. It didn’t take long for your mouth to open in a sigh, chest heaving at the pleasure you could conjure yourself alone. Your spare hand, once on your sensitive nipple, was now searching for your phone, lost somewhere in the sheets.

On the brink of your climax you pressed the button for the vocal text, hoping that the wet sound of your folds would somehow get caught in the recording. "I'm so sorry I couldn't wait, I've tried to be good, but I dreamt of you and you were so hot, Yoongi, and I kept thinking of your mouth on me, I'm so, so sorry, I swear I'll be the best girl tonight, please--" and with a final whimper you felt your body come apart, a desperate squeal surging from your lips. You rode out your high, hips bouncing on the mattress with the power of your thrusts. Once your breathing subsided, you stopped the recording and without thinking twice you let it send. 

You let the phone fall, laughing hysterically when you thought about what you've just done. No amount of behaving and grovelling could fix your most recent infraction and, interrupting your train of thought you headed for the bathroom, cleaning up before getting dressed and entering the kitchen to make yourself some lunch. 

In the process you ignored your phone, left in silent mode on the bed, missing a text from your Yoongi and a call. 

You were in for trouble. 

The afternoon was pretty uneventful, you finished a book that had been laying on your coffee table for a while, then you watched some episodes of a series you had forgotten you had started, and that's probably because it was so boring and filled with useless drama that you fell asleep on the couch. You woke up with the sound of the lock of the apartment, weak light coming in from the window. You had probably - unsurprisingly - slept till dinner. 

You heard Yoongi's voice calling your name from the entrance. "Come here."

You had seriously underestimated the trouble you were in. 

Mumbling from the couch, you sat up, feet heavy and brain still reconnecting to reality. 

He stood in the doorway to the sitting room, his face absolutely neutral. “Is that why you didn’t answer my calls? You were sleeping off your orgasm?” He licked his lips. “I had told you to wait.” His hands were propped on his hips while he stared down at you. 

“I tried to wait but I wanted you too much.” You said, voice tiny, knowing all too well that you had made a mistake. 

“Did you want me or did you want to cum?” He asked, his expression stern. 

“I was turned on because I had dreamt of you.” You admitted, hoping that being well-behaved could save you from the worst of his fury.

“And what did you dream?” He asked.

You looked him in the eye, “I dreamt of you licking me.”

“Was I only licking you? Where was I licking?” The intensity of his eyes burnt through you.

“You were sucking hickeys on me, using your hand between my legs, then fucking me with your mouth.” You described, cheeks blushing.

“That’s a lot more specific. And was I good in your dream?” He questioned. 

“You are always so good to me, Yoongi.” You batted your lashes at him, speaking with that soft voice he loves so much.

“So, did you cum in your dreams?”

You shook your head. “I woke up.”

He snickered. “Such a disgrace.” He brought his fingers to his belt, undoing it very slowly. “So much useless training.” He unlooped the accessory, folding it in two and stretching it between his hands. “Come here.”

You obeyed with a deeply apologetic expression on your face. 

“Kneel.” He ordered. 

Once more you carried out his command. 

“Your hands.” He said, and you offered them to him, slightly parted. With skilled fingers he placed his belt around your forearms, using it as some sort of leash around your wrists. 

“Good. Now you will walk to the bedroom on your knees, hands bound. You'd better keep the pace.” At that he took the first step, wide and slightly impatient. You soon realised it took three knee steps to make up for one of his full ones. You were actually fretting after him and by the time you reached the bedroom you were sweaty and short of breath. 

“Well, looks like your training is not lacking. Maybe it’s just your manners. Let me help you understand.” In the meantime he undid the belt, two deep dwells appearing on the skin it had encompassed, but nothing drastic, since he hadn’t pulled that bad. 

“You have sent me a picture of you, naked, reminding how much I always miss your soft breasts and how bad I need to mark you up. Then, after I explicitly told you not to, not only you touched yourself, but you also sent me a recording of how good you sound when you cum, of how wet your cunt gets when you think of me.”

You mewl as he takes off your shirt, you still kneeling on the floor. 

“And to top it all, you didn’t reply to my text or my calls, leaving me frustrated and so fucking horny all afternoon.” He commanded you up with a sign of his hand. Now a few inches taller than you, he looked you in your face. “And I had to listen to that through my earphones, during lunch with the boys. Do you know how embarrassing it was to get a hard on like a stupid teenager? And my friends were there, worried for me, asking what had happened.” He looked livid, tonguing his cheek and clenching his jaw. His voice was so low and husky you could cum of the sound of him alone.

He grabbed your face with his hand, squeezing your pout between your squished cheeks, the pose usually cute, but now absolutely indecent. “My sexy little girlfriend, that’s what happened. Making me frustrated and angry at lunch so I can come home all furious and fuck her till she begs.”

You nodded at that, your eyes imploring him. 

“I think Hobi even heard you. After all he was sitting so close to me.” He muttered. “Did you want him to hear? Want him to know how wet I make you, how needy you are for me? Did you want me to play it without my earphones so everyone could ear?”

You shook your head. “No, Yoongi.”

“That’s right. Because you’re mine and I’m the only one who can get you desperate like that.” He smiled at you, now with some fondness. 

“This will teach you to think twice before you hit send. Unless you’re comfortable with anyone possibly hearing and seeing you on my phone. And since no one should hear you and touch you and see you and taste you but me, let’s remind you who you belong to, uh?” He threw you over the bed. “Silly girls like you tend to forget their lessons.”

Half a minute later your hands were secured over your head with an old bandana of his, the bright red fabric contrasting with your skin. 

“First thing, we should touch up my mark, yes?” He waited for confirmation.

“Please Yoongi, show me I’m yours.” You cried out, your mouth trying to reach him. 

He mercifully bent down to your lips, only to bite the tip of your tongue before sucking on it a little. “You’re so hungry for me, it’s almost like you didn’t get yourself off.”

“It was a mistake. I don’t even know why I did that, it wasn’t you.” You begged.

“Well, big girls pay the consequences for their actions.” And with that he licked down your neck leaving a trail of saliva before his front teeth settled against your collarbone. 

“You dreamt of my mouth, yes?”

You nodded impatiently. 

“Than that’s what I’m gonna give you.” His hand connected with yours, still looking for that small sign of intimacy between the two of you, that secret language of yours made of intertwined fingers and nails scraping against palms. 

His mouth searched the soft flesh at the base of your throat and started sucking there, the skin bruising easily. Your legs crossed behind his back, pressing upwards to gain some friction.

“Do you want my cock?” He teased, licking up the mark he’d just imprinted on you.

“Please, Yoongi.” You mumbled, grinding into his lap. 

“So ready.” He sucked another mark into you. “But you’ll have to wait.” He kissed between your collarbones, slowly descending towards your breastbone. “Let’s get rid of this bra first.”

His hand reached behind your back, unclasping the black cotton bra, grinning devilishly as your breasts slipped out and your nipples perked up. Noticing your tied wrists he mulled over what to do, settling for pushing the garment all the way up along your arms, leaving it tangled in the bandana. 

“Keep your hands still, baby, I’m gonna feast on you.” At that, he pushed your breasts together, licking the crevasse there, finding his favourite spot. His body was kneeling between your parted legs while his strong hands began kneading your flesh aggressively. Mesmerized by the softness of your skin, he started nibbling on it, breaking the blood vessels blooming there, suckling while looking at your blissful expression, your eyes just barely open to enjoy the way his lovely, perfect lips parted and made love to the luscious swell of your bosom.

His mouth moved to the side, capturing a nipple and tonguing it artfully, his teeth trapping it while his tongue dragged it up and down. When he combined it with the bobbing of his head, your moans became high pitched squeals, the pleasure so intense you could come apart from it alone. 

“You liking it?” He provoked you, his arrogant demeanour matching his cocky smirk, his breath fanning over your wet nipple. 

“I like it so much, Yoongi, please let my hands go.” You were literally praying him, your lower lip shaking with exasperation.

“Oh no, ____. You’ll keep your hands put, so you’ll learn that if I tell you not to touch yourself, you don’t put a fucking finger on this pussy.” He sat up straight, his hands dragging both your sweats and panties off. Your scent hit him immediately, his body so accustomed to your every small tell. With your body now finally naked and at his mercy, he let his eyes roam freely as you pushed your breasts up, back arching, legs clenching for the tiniest sense of relief. 

“That’s my kitten. You look like sin.” Standing at the side of the bed, he dragged the tip of his middle finger deliriously slowly from your toe to your neck, his fingers pressing at the thick veins at the base. After a couple seconds you were already dizzy, your brain too fuzzy to notice him sitting beside you on the bed, his spare hand fooling around your hip-bone, raising goosebumps on its wake. His naughty hand reached your navel. 

“Are you ready, sweet thing?” he licked once more at your breast, the hand at your neck losing some pressure. He knew all too well when it got too much. He kissed your shoulder, devotedly. “Are you ready, ____?”

You nodded, wailing in desire.

“That’s it.” His finger reached your clit without hesitation, your eyes opening wide, searching for his. He didn’t disappoint, meeting your stare from below you, still latched onto your breast, the one he hadn’t had the chance of fondling earlier. 

After a couple strokes, marvelling at your wetness he added another finger, slipping them inside you. “Were your fingers this good?” He asked, encompassing your areola in a bite.

Again, you whined in surprise, shaking your head. The gesture reminded you of the grip on your neck, causing his fingers to tighten there. “No, Yoongi. I’m sorry. You know it.”

“I know it. I do.” His pattern changed, now fingering you in a come hither motion. 

“But since you’ve already had your hand on you today, and you had my mouth in your dreams, I might as well get my own fun.”

“Yoongi please, I’ll do anything you want, please, my hands…” He laughed sadistically, then he undid his button and fly. He found it hot, having you naked, at his mercy right before him, while he was fully dressed, nothing but the necessary parts uncovered. 

Some part of him wanted the nearness, the fond sensuality of skin against skin, but remembering the burn of embarrassment at lunch made his fingers quicken and his temper flare. 

“If you touch me, just once, I’ll twist you around, tie you up, and blindfold you. And then I’ll use that nasty toy you hate so much to make myself cum all over you. Understood.”

“Yes, Yoongi.” You replied, almost too fucked out to give him coherent words.

“Good.” The delicate knot came undone in seconds, his face resting temptingly close to yours. “You sure you don’t wanna grab my face, kitten?”

A fucking demon. As you shook your head no, he grinned darkly and slid in, bottoming out in one brutal motion.

Your hands gripped the pillowcase so hard that the joints of your fingers popped. You knew how easy it would be for you to reach for him, probably it would have been better if your hands had stayed tied, but you hoped he would reward you for your hard work and willingly increased effort. 

“You all right, kitten?” He asked, breath laboured. 

“I just need you to move, Yoongi, please.” You circled your hips, his groan ricocheting from his chest. 

“Imma latch on your pretty neck, baby. You’ll still have a collar by the time I send you back to work.” He briefly kissed your mouth. “You good with that, baby?”

“Yoongs, anything please.”

One more laugh and his mouth peppered butterfly kisses along the column of your throat, his mouth at your ear. “Enjoy, ‘cause it’s gonna be one hell of a ride.”

At that he started hammering into you, his hands propping himself up, shifting to his elbows quickly as he willingly searched for your wrists.

“I wanna hear you mewl, kitten.” He encouraged you, shortly before settling his teeth at the base of your throat.

“Yoongi, yes.” He started sucking, unbothered, his hips shifting to let his pubic bone drag against your clit. 

“Wanna wrap my legs around you.” You murmured. 

He let go of one of your hands, placing his palm on your knee and picking it up, encouraging you to hold him like that. 

The change in angle made him growl in relief, his hips even faster. “Imma take it home, yeah?”

He was going so hard you felt tipsy, so when he rose, his back arched, one hand balancing him up, the other coiling around your neck once more, you felt ready to leave your body. 

“Show me how you came this morning, kitten, show me what I missed.” He slowed down his thrusts, waiting for you to comply. 

You lowered your arm slowly, fingers aching to caress his balls, but dutifully landing on your clit, your lips parting in a loud cry. 

“Yes, kitten. Give me your other hand.” You were mildly suspicious and the hand at your throat was making you wonder whether you were imagining things. He snickered, grunting in effort, “want to suck on those dirty fingers. Give me your free hand, love.”

Fingers dripping in his spit, latched on his lower teeth, trapped between his lips, you felt his hips snap, the devastating mix of sensations triggering your orgasm, eyes rolling back and vision going blank, not even bothering to make a sound. 

His mouth opened in a silent cry, hips losing their pattern, his weight now propped on his elbow, hand free to grip your hair while his fingerstips slid up and down gently against your throat. When the frenzy dissipated, his high subsiding, he collapsed on you, thoroughly exhausted. Your heaving chest pillowed his head, his breathing making your new marks sizzle with the sudden fresh air. With the little energy left, he removed the hand still protecting your overly sensitive clit, brushing it against the place where your bodies joined, making sure it caught both your tastes before bringing it to his mouth, licking at it in some absolutely classy, although obscene, way. 

“So good, kitten.” He praised. “Give me ten minutes. I was so hard on you, I need to make up for it. We got a full week but I need to make sweet love to you tonight, princess.” 

Forget dinner, you’ll be the only meal he needs to eat tonight.

[strawberrywritings]

First fight.

A/N: Never in a million years I would’ve thought this series would get this far, omg! Here’s the next chapter, y’all. What if I tolf you the next chapter was going to be the last? I have it already written and it has a nice ending, but idk if you guys want more🙈

As always, let me know what you think! Thank you for all the support that I keep getting, I know I’m not the best at dealing with replies, tags, messages, etc, but I always try my best. Ily xx 🍓🍓

/ Previous parts / Masterlist

EZ’s trailer was right next to the clubhouse, so he was always the first one there, fixing things, stocking beers and getting the clubhouse ready for the day. By now, he was able to recognize who was pulling up just by the roar of their motorbike or car, if it was the truck, a stranger’s car, and he also memorized the sound of Galindo’s cars, which was the one currently pulling up in front of the yard. He immediately alerted Bishop and everyone’s ears perked up when they heard Galindo’s name being spoken. Miguel never came directly to their clubhouse, they had agreed to always meet in the desert to make sure no one ever saw them together, so none of them knew what to expect when they saw him climb out of the car, diligently followed by Nestor, as always; and it couldn’t be that he needed their mechanical help, Miguel had people that did everything for him, no doubt he had a mechanic, too, he would never go to them for help.

Bishop approached him and they shook hands, “How can we help you?”, Miguel smiled and looked around, everyone was watching him. “Let’s go inside, Presidente”, Miguel said, taking off his jacket once inside, EZ handing them a couple of glasses with whiskey and Miguel took a sip, only dilating the tension on the room. “One of my shops was destroyed, last night, and as you can imagine, it cost me money. And now I want it back”, he declared, and everyone started at him, confused. “I’m sorry this happened – Bishop started – but my club can’t help you with this”, he shook his head slightly and Miguel laughed, walking slowly to stand right in front where Angel was seated. “Wanna say something?”, Angel didn’t hesitate before standing up and going face to face with the cartel boss. “Depends, what the fuck are you implying?”, he spat, EZ and Coco were right behind him, taking his arms and trying to prevent a catastrophe. Miguel’s eyes were dark, he crossed his arms over his chest, “I hung out with your girl a couple of days ago and yesterday one of my shops burnt down, funny coincidence, don’t you think?”.

Angel was speechless, much like everyone else in the club... and when Miguel looked at EZ, Angel followed his stare. “You knew about this?”, he seethed, and his brother widened his eyes and lifted his hands up. “They just ate lunch in front of the school, Angel”, EZ’s eyes were pleading, he didn’t mention he saw you with Miguel that day, when he called his brother, he had only told him that he met you and that you looked like shit. Angel’s head was full of all different thoughts. What was she doing with him? Why didn’t my brother tell me? If Miguel knows she’s with me, why does he even get near her?

“I didn’t do shit to your fucking shop… but right now I wish I did”, Angel roughly shoved him and everyone rushed forward, incoherent shouts filling the room, and after a couple seconds the Mayans managed to get control of the situation, pulling their Secretario back, Nestor and his men doing the same with their boss. Miguel straightened his shirt and fixed the collar, signaling Nestor that he was alright. Angel was fuming, his hands were fisted and his brothers were sure that if they hadn’t intervened, Miguel would have his nose broken by now. He pointed his finger at Miguel, “La próxima vez que te acercas a mi novia, te voy a cortar la verga”, The next time you’ll get close to my girl, I’ll cut your dick. He didn’t even let the other man answer before he stormed out the clubhouse, lighting a cigarette to calm his nerves. “Prospect”, Bishop called, and EZ stood in front of his president, who motioned him to come even closer, so the others wouldn’t hear, “Make sure he get his shit together”. “Yes, sir”. “And never, never, hide something like this from him, or the club, got it?”, EZ nodded again and went outside, going to stand beside his brother.

“Why didn’t you tell me”, Angel whispered, and he sounded like he had been crying. His brother looked at him with sorry eyes, Angel was good at hiding his emotions, it wasn’t like him to crack. “I told you what was important: she looked horrible, I’m pretty sure it’s about the argument you guys had a few days back”, Angel looked at his brother, wondering how he knew that, had you told him about the fight? His questions were answered when EZ spoke again. “She told me she wasn’t feeling good, and I’m sure that it was just a lunch together with him, nothing more… but you need to sort things out with her, Angel. We can all see how much this is weighting on you”, he put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, and Angel took another drag from the cigarette. “She fucking hates me, hermanito. I saw it in her eyes”. “You either get here yourself or I take you”, EZ deadpanned. Angel sighed, his head hung lowly as he contemplated what to do. He decided that if he had to be let down again, he wanted it to be like ripping a band aid: quick and painless. He’d come over, you’d tell him you were done, he’d come back here and drink himself into oblivion.

/

He had no idea how he got to your house in one piece, his mind was somewhere else and he didn’t pay attention when driving, but there he stood, on your doorstep; you must’ve been home, it was almost 10pm. He knocked on the door, deciding that he wouldn’t knock twice, if you weren’t there he’d just go home. He heard shuffling on the other side of the door, then footsteps, and his heartbeat picked up excessively. You opened the door and stared at him as if you had never seen another human being, both of you silent, not knowing what to say; you were the one to speak up first. “Angel… something’s wrong?”, you asked softly, opening the door more to fully take him in: hair messy, bags under his eyes, chapped lips, crinkled clothes. Your eyes softened the more you started at him, and when he didn’t answer, you stepped to the side, “Wanna come inside?”, and he tentatively walked in your house. “Can we – he cleared his throat – can we talk?”, he looked at you, and he could tell you weren’t doing much better. “Sure, do you wanna eat something? A drink?”, you asked, as he sat down on a chair and shook his head, “I’m cool, thanks”.

Silence filled the room once again before he looked at you in the eyes, making you feel way too vulnerable. “I haven’t heard from you in days”. “I told you I needed space, Angel”. “Yeah? Galindo doesn’t look like space to me”, he bit back and you clenched your jaw. “He’s not. He’s work. I can’t just brush it off whenever I want”. Angel laughed humourlessly and shook his head. “Well, now he won’t be a problem anymore, querida. I took care of him”, he looked proud. “What did you do?”. “Why do you care? Is that why you haven’t called me back, hm? Because you were busy with him?”. Again, his insecurities got the best of him and he was saying things he didn’t mean. “No, Angel, I just needed some time for myself”. “Doesn’t fucking look like it”, he scoffed, and that really set you off.

“He means nothing to me – your voice had risen, you were almost shouting, and he widened his eyes – I told you it’s just work, and that’s it! That was the only time in these 5 days in which I managed to take my mind off you. I was too busy thinking about what you were doing, if you were hurting like I was, if you had been with someone else…”, you had to pause to take a breath, tears forming in your eyes at the thought of all the girls who hung around the Mayans, then you continued. “I kept thinking about what you told me, and I’d be willing to put up with your fucking club shit, even if I know it’s not the right thing to do, because I love you so goddamn much!. And ever-”.

“You love me?”, Angel whispered, eyes wide in realization, mirroring yours: you hadn’t said those three words, yet. And now, they were for him. 

taglist @scuzmunkie @ifoundmyhappythought @starrynite7114 @angelreyesgirl @my-rosegold-soul @claytoncardenasbabymama @peaches007 @chibsytelford @thickemadame @cind-in-real-life @mrsjaxtellerfan @cocotheclown @elcococruz @woahitslucyylu @everyhowlmarksthedead @justahopelessssromantic @gemini0410 @samcrobae @imagineredwood @blessedboo @brattyfics @sadeyesgf @enamoured-x @rebel-without-cause-x @enamouravecleslivresetlechocolat @thesandbeneathmytoes​ @general-tiny-mouse​ @danie1432​ @blackmissfrizzle​ @wrcn9fvlcver​ @ly--canthrope​ @soaronmywings​ @spookys-girl​ @thewarriorprincessxo​  @lady-pswrld​ (i feel like i am always forgetting people along the way, whyyy)

[lio-the-chaotic-nonbeanie-weenie]

A Supernatural World: Chapter 2

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Summary: Fleeing their hometown of Miami, Florida due to it growing far too dangerous, Roman and his vampire brother Remus move to Detroit, Michigan. Remus hopes it’ll be safer here for his human (or so he thinks he’s human) brother. Roman only wishes to start anew after a traumatizing incident in his last college, hoping to make new friends and maybe even find love. They don’t know what this city or the future holds but it’s going to be quite the adventure as they explore their new surroundings and the…interesting people that live in it.

Pairings: Eventual roceit, Eventual Intrulogical, slowburn roceit, slowburn Intrulogical, romantic roceit, romantic Intrulogical. BROTHERLY CREATIVITWINS (rem/rom shippers fuck off)

WARNINGS: MENTIONS OF ABUSE, IMPLIED ABUSE, TOXIC PARENTING, MENTIONS OF SEXUAL HARRASSMENT, IMPLIED SEXUAL HARRASSMENT, POSSIBLE IMPLIED RAPE, SLIGHT BLOOD MENTION, SLIGHT MENTION OF MURDER, MENTIONS OF FOOD POISONING

Taglist: @mychemically-imbalanced-romance

(If anyone else would like to be tagged, let me know!)

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Moving to a new apartment after being on the run for so long had been exhausting but they made it and they were a lot safer now. For the first time in a long time, Roman finds himself waking up with little to no worries in his mind. He sits up and yawns, stretching his arms. He takes a deep breath and perks up a little when he smells breakfast in the air. With a rumbling tummy, Roman slips out of bed and ambles out of the bedroom and to the kitchen, finding Remus at the stove and making breakfast. Bacon and eggs sizzle away in the frying pan.

“Morning, Ree. Where’d you get that?” Roman asks, plopping down at the dining table.

“Hey, sleepyhead. I wasn’t going to go grocery shopping until some time later but I figured we could use a good breakfast after all the shit we went through to get here. So, I went out and bought a few things at the convenience store across the street.” Remus replies, plating up the food.

“I do miss having good breakfasts like this.” Roman giggles before making a face. “I don’t think I want to eat more yucky hotel food or disgusting gas station meals.”

Remus huffs a laugh and gives Roman his plate.

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“I got food poisoning twice in Alabama and Kentucky.”

“Okay, fair point.” 

Remus shakes his head fondly at the memory of poor Ro throwing up in their motel room. He hadn’t meant to make his twin sick but he couldn’t exactly order anything fancy. He was trying to save up for an apartment. He did feel bad for Ro. His twin had been eager to try KFC when they got to Kentucky. Turns out that the KFC they ordered from was a bit, well, unsanitary. Oh well, at least they don’t have to worry about that now. Remus gets his own plate and sets it on the table before turning to the fridge to get juice for them both.

“So, did you sleep okay? I know I used my magic on you but it can’t always block the nightmares.” Remus says, setting the juice bottle on the counter and moving to get glasses.

Meanwhile, Roman eagerly starts eating. He makes a delighted noise and eats more.

“I did. It feels nice to wake up without worrying if someone broke in or freaking out because you thought the cleaning lady was an intruder.” he grins, taking another bite.

“That’s good. And don’t worry. I’m sure there’s no scary cleaning lady here this time.” Remus chuckles, pouring him and Roman some juice.

Roman giggles and goes back to eating, humming in thanks when Remus gives him his juice.

“I know, Ree. So, what are you going to do?” he asks.

“Well, since everything is mostly unpacked, I’m going to explore around the city and see what’s there to see. Maybe find a job too. We can’t exactly live on our money forever.” 

“True. I’m going to see if I can enroll in theatre after breakfast.” 

“Ooh, good luck with that. I know you’ll kill it out there.

“I know. Promise you won’t kill anyone out there?”

Remus huffs a laugh. 

“Promise, Ro.”

The twins share a laugh and continue talking, Roman eagerly telling Remus all the stuff he’s excited to do again. Roman used to be in theatre in high school but it wasn’t fun. He had constant pressure on his shoulders to be a star performer in their parents’ eyes. He’d spent restless nights rehearsing and practicing under his mother’s command. He’d endure other nights where his mother would reprimand him for even the smallest slip up in his plays or when he didn’t get the lead role she demanded him to get. He’d been forced into diets and dressed uncomfortably to look perfect for his parts. Theatre was ruined for him then and he endured it until high school was over.

Then there was his first year of college. Roman had been happy to have at least a bit of distance between him and his abusive home. He had tried for theatre again in hope it would go well this time. It didn’t. The professor who led the whole theatre crew was a creep along with a few techies. Roman was the poor victim who was constantly targeted, getting groped or hit on whenever he was alone with either a techie or the professor himself. At first, Roman had been clueless, thinking the groping was an accident and the flirting was all in good fun. Then it kept getting worse and worse until one day, the professor and his techies cornered Roman in the dressing room and left him a wreck with his costume torn. 

Remus found out when Roman came home crying and told him. They tried to get justice but the professor and the techies left no proof so their case fell flat and was never opened again. All they could do was leave that college. Of course, their parents didn’t side with them, accusing Roman of ‘asking for it’ and punishing him for ‘selling his body’. That’s when Remus had enough and broke out of the basement he was forced to stay in. He went to Roman and comforted him, telling him they weren’t staying here anymore. After waiting for their parents to leave the house for another drunken night at some bar, the twins packed up and left. Roman hasn’t tried theatre since. The funny thing is, that was only a year ago.

Now, Roman was feeling a bit confident and wanted to try theatre once more. He even wanted to help with costumes and makeup or maybe even make props. He also missed singing on stage so he was excited to do that again. Eager to try out again, Roman eats a little faster. He really wants to enroll and step up on the shiny stage floor again. 

Meanwhile, Remus huffs a laugh, seeing how eager his brother is.

“Easy, Ro. You have plenty of time to sign up for theatre.” he says, patting his twin’s head.

Roman smiles bashfully.

“I know. I’m just so excited, Ree! I miss the stage! Now that we’re free from our parents and those creeps, I feel like I can do theatre again without all these problems!” he exclaims, grinning.

“I know but you can’t do that if you choke on your breakfast.” 

Roman giggles.

“Right. Sorry.”

Roman slows down but keeps eating, babbling about theatre stuff in between while Remus listens along. It’s not long before Roman finishes and puts his dishes in the sink before going back to his room to get his laptop from his bag so he can start enrolling. His eager humming can be heard around the apartment and it makes the atmosphere a little bit more warm and peaceful.

Meanwhile, Remus quickly did the dishes then went to get ready to explore. He cleaned up as best as he could before getting changed into a black t-shirt, grey ripped jeans, combat boots, and a dark green leather jacket. He then returns to the bedroom and finds Roman sitting on his bed, already with his laptop on. Remus chuckles and ruffles his twin’s hair.

“Alright, I’m gonna head out now. Will you be okay with being alone for a bit?” Remus asks, watching for a moment as Roman reads through some search results.

“Yeah! I’ll call you if anything happens and Janus is upstairs too!” Roman beams.

“Good. I’ll be back later, Ro.”

“Kay! Stay safe!”

Remus gives Roman a lazy salute and leaves him to do his college hunting. He grabs his bat and his pocket knife from his backpack along with a pocket flask filled with emergency blood. Then he slips out the door and heads down to the lobby. He waves hello to Jeremiah as he exits the building, Detroit’s cool and smoggy air hitting his face. After making sure no one is around, Remus sneaks around to the back and jumps his way up the apartment building using the fire escapes there. He then climbs onto the roof. Sure, he could have taken the stairs but that wasn’t as fun. Remus takes a deep breath and walks over to the edge, taking in the view and plotting out a path.

Remus sees the bridge and the old freighter. In the distance, he can just make out the edge of Belle Isle in the morning fog. He can see a nearby police station too. Immediately, he makes a note to avoid the station for safety purposes. It takes a few more minutes but he figures out a route through a mostly empty street that leads to a cluster of small businesses and restaurants. Taking a deep breath, Remus turns and runs before leaping over a gap and landing onto the next roof. His speed picks up and he keeps moving, jumping from roof to roof.

To Remus, it always felt thrilling to go on a rooftop run. He liked the feeling of cool air on his skin and the rush he gets when he leaps high into the air. It’s almost like he was flying. He liked watching the cars and buildings rushing by him. He liked being able to explore and see new places, especially the ones with good views or creepy vibes. 

Maybe he’ll explore the burnt down mansion in the outskirts of Detroit some other time. He hears it’s haunted. Maybe he’ll explore that old tech company that shut down and became abandoned due to a lot of bad business incidents. He found some rumors online that the company was going to create an android before it fell apart and shut down. He also heard of an abandoned mansion hidden somewhere in an isolated location of Detroit. He heard rumors of the last owner being a rich CEO who was murdered by his wife and her sister. Others say his remains could be found at the bottom of his dried up indoor pool. 

The thought of it all excited Remus more. It felt nice to be in a new place so once he and Roman were settled in enough, he decided he’ll explore those places in the future. For now, he jumps to another rooftop and pauses to catch his breath. He may be a vampire but not even the undead can run without tiring. Remus decides to hop down from the roof, exiting through an alleyway and slipping wordlessly onto the street. He carefully weaves between some people and hums as he starts walking, passing by a grey haired man and his companion walking a Saint Bernard. 

Remus looks around as he walks. There isn’t much here. There’s a homeless man on the street corner, begging for change or food. There’s a stray cat sniffing at something in the garbage cans by the alleyway. There’s a small convenience store selling party decorations and supplies. Across it is an old bar with a flickering neon sign. A faded ‘Help Wanted’ sign sits in the window, asking for someone to come work as either a cleaner or to work behind the bar. Remus knew he had no skill in working behind the bar but he figured he could try for the cleaner position. Cleaning isn’t usually his thing but he’s willing to try so he can at least make enough money to pay for rent and for any funds Roman may have for theatre. Taking a deep breath, Remus steps inside.

“Oh! Welcome to Jimmy’s Bar! I’m Jimmy!”

[angstyclowns]

If you could what about an Alpha reader and Omega Baku finding out Omega Todo is being abused by Endeavor

though I prefer writing about alpha boys I’m totally down for a change!

Also Todobaku makes my heart go oof-

Warnings: Abuse, Endeavor’s shitty parenting. 

Poly! Omega! Todobaku x Alpha! reader

How to describe you as an alpha in one word?

If you asked your omegas, protective would probably be in the top two.

They would also use dense but that’s beside the point

You tended to growl when an unfamiliar alpha got to0 close to one of your omegas.

You regularly re-bit their bond mark.

and you constantly made sure they were thoroughly scented.

So when even the slightest bit changed with your omega, you would know. 

Especially when mysterious bruises started appearing all over Shoto. 

At first you thought it was just training, so you began watching him closely. 

But then the bruises didn’t line up. so you decided to dig deeper.

If they weren’t coming from training, they had to have come from one of two different places. 

The dorms or his home. 

You immediately crossed off the dorms, since only 1-A students were there and none were brave or stupid enough to feel your wrath.

So you dug even deeper.

It was Saturday, and the only ones in the dorms right now were you, Katsuki, Jirou and Momo.

You figure the two females wouldn’t bother you.

But this still marked the beginning of your investigation; a how were you going to do that?

By calling the one person you knew would tell you what was happening.

“Hey, Fuyumi? I have a few questions....”

It was almost laughable how quickly your mood changed after that phone call. 

You were livid.

Red began tinting your view as you felt nothing but pure adrenaline coursing through your veins.

A warm hand broke you out of your impending alpha rage, Katsuki looking down at you with concern. 

“We’re going on a walk?”

“Where?

“I’ll explain on the way.”

And explain you did, a plan you made in your head within the ten minutes in took to walk to Shoto’s house.

His sister met you outside, wrinkling her nose at the burnt smell wafting off of you.  

She let you in and led you two to Endeavors training room.

Just as his hand raised to smack the already injured omega on the ground.

You quickly stopped him with your quirk, allowing Katsuki to run in and grab Shoto, pulling him behind you.

“Stay the fuck away from my omega, Endeavor. I’m not going to ask twice.”

“And what are you going to do?! He’s nothing but a useless breeding ground.

You smirked.

“I’m sure the media would eat up a story about Shoto Todoroki being abused by his father.”

Shoto wouldn’t go to the media, but you hoped Endeavor bought the bluff. 

He did, growling before waving you off.

You ushered your omegas out of there, keeping stupid close to them until they were safe inside of their shared nest with you watching over them.

It was safe to say Shoto wasn’t going back to his house for a long time. 

At least, not if you and Katsuki had anything to do with it.